Upgrade your browser!

Skip to Content

Project Orion - To Saturn by Nuclear Bom...

Orion was 1950`s Project to study the possibility of a spacecraft powered by nuclear pulse propulsion. The design would have worked by ejecting nuclear weapons from the rear of a vehicle, detonating them, and catching the blast with a shock absorber equipped pusher plate. This sequence would be repeated thousands of times, in effect an atomic pogo stick. The project was scrapped in 1965 amid fear about fallout both political and radiological. Footage shown is of scale testing done using conventional explosives.
Check this video out too.

  • Kell
  • posted by Kell
  • Date 3/6/2008 3:41:55 PM
  • Views: 3079
  • All Ages
  • All Ages

Related Media

  • Video:Bomb Jack
  • Bomb Jack
  • A flash remake of the arcade game BombJack. Jack “defus. . .
  • Votes 4.12/5 - Views 1333 - Comments 4
  • Video:The Kittinger Jump
  • The Kittinger Jump
  • On August 16, 1960, Joe Kittinger was strapped into an . . .
  • Votes 4.47/5 - Views 353 - Comments 3
  • Video:UFOs In Google Sky
  • UFOs In Google Sky
  • Here is a compilation of odd things and ufos I have fou. . .
  • Votes 2.7/5 - Views 1155 - Comments 22
  • Video:Gravitee
  • Gravitee
  • Cosmic Mini-Golf using the gravity of the planets to ge. . .
  • Votes 4.3/5 - Views 3979 - Comments 8

View All

Your Macromedia's Flash Player
may be out of date


Click here to upgrade your flash player.

You may also get this message if you have disabled your javascript. You must enable it to view videos.



Trouble playing the video? Click here to download the original.

Rate This Video:
Rate it 0.5 Rate it 1.0 Rate it 1.5 Rate it 2.0 Rate it 2.5 Rate it 3.0 Rate it 3.5 Rate it 4.0 Rate it 4.5 Rate it 5.0

4.56 out of 5 based on 479 votes

Rating Results:
Earn XP by sharing this video!
learn more

Video URL:

Embedded Link:

Send This Video To A Cell Phone! Digg

14 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

Pinsel : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

Pinsel

8 votes NegativePositive

264 days 18 hours ago...

nicely ties in with this http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/144093/Nuclear-powered-Rocket-To-Saturn
.html?rh=40593

pyroporno : LVL 35: VP 4.3: said:

pyroporno

Hidden (Show Comment) -9 votes

258 days 15 hours ago...

it seems like a good plan until you realize its a nuclear fallout waiting to happen

the song was the "bomb" though

Jon_Snow : LVL 36: VP 4.4: said:

Jon_Snow

3 votes NegativePositive

258 days 13 hours ago...

I`m assuming they weren`t going to give a shit about where it actually went using that method, something tells me that depending on a nuclear blast for impulse is not the best way to get to a specific destination.

revco32 : LVL 10: VP 1.9: said:

revco32

-2 votes NegativePositive

258 days 12 hours ago...

Man the 50`s and 60`s must have been where the best drugs were! what a great ride, I think I would equate it to learning how to drive a stick shift, alot of jerking back and forth.

johnpaulbland : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

johnpaulbland

9 votes NegativePositive

258 days 8 hours ago...

space is full of gamma radiation from the sun so there wouldn`t be any more radiation than there already is. Fallout is what you get when a nuclear bomb explodes on the planet surface, thousands of tons of dust are sucked up by the mushroom cloud and are subsequently radiated,as they fall down they create a rain of nuclear fallout which pollutes the area for years, in space however there is nothing, no dust or matter so there would be no fallout.

39ster : LVL 25: VP 3.4: said:

39ster

1 votes NegativePositive

258 days 5 hours ago...

Use rocket fuel to get off earth, than once in space use the nuclear explosions.

Miles : LVL 34: VP 4.2: said:

Miles

4 votes NegativePositive

258 days 5 hours ago...

saturn is a kind of car, not a spaceship

shackle : LVL 33: VP 4.2: said:

shackle

3 votes NegativePositive

258 days 4 hours ago...

Seems like a whole lot of wasted energy there.

Equand1 : LVL 22: VP 3.1: said:

Equand1

2 votes NegativePositive

258 days 4 hours ago...

the explosion testing on earth is worth nothing actually, because explosion sux back the air the rocket actually stops for a second and sometimes even retracts... it looks like a hopping gazelle.

Serial Thrill : LVL 25: VP 3.4: said:

Serial Thrill

1 votes NegativePositive

258 days 3 hours ago...

It makes a lot more sense to do it in space. You would launch the craft normally, then use the nuclear propulsion system where gravity and friction wouldn`t matter any more. With each detonation the craft would gain more speed, and keep it, unlike in our atmosphere.

Great Googly Moogly : LVL 7: VP 1.6: said:

Great Googly Moogly

-1 votes NegativePositive

258 days 2 hours ago...

^Johnpaulbland

What if by some chance the rocket carrying all those nukes and all that radioactive material somehow blew up midway through launch? hmmm Im guessing all that "harmless fallout" would fall nicely back to earth and not harm anyone at all. Yeah(!)

This is why nothing in space has ever been or will ever be nuclear powered, cause the potential for apocalyptic disaster is too great.

proconsul : LVL 37: VP 4.5: said:

proconsul

1 votes NegativePositive

258 days 1 hour ago...

^unless the nuclear device is brought into space piece by piece and assembled up there?

strickjh2005 : LVL 24: VP 3.3: said:

strickjh2005

0 votes NegativePositive

258 days 1 hour ago...

Yeah it could be kept unarmed by removing the detonator. So you would have a small explosive in one trip, and a huge ass piece of very heavy metal (weapons grade plutonium) in the next.

If either rocket failed, no big deal.

gtasaif : LVL 19: VP 2.8: said:

gtasaif

0 votes NegativePositive

257 days 14 hours ago...

Frank Sinatra!

Post a Comment:

Avatar


The Spikedhumor Drawing!Moderators Contest
Prize
Entry Dates: 11/4/2008-12/15/2008