Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Space Travel (part 3)


Nuclear propulsion is a theoretical possibility for traveling much faster than ion propulsion or gravitational slingshotting. Project Orion began in 1958, inspired during the early stages of development of the atomic bomb. Interplanetary space travel utilizing the power of pulsed nuclear explosions would provide a huge thrust with a very high specific impulse. Maximum energy could be extracted from a starship's fuel to minimize the cost and maximize the range. This would produce a speed of about 5% the speed of light. Using nuclear propulsion, a starship could travel the 4.3 light year distance from earth to Proxima Centauri in only 85 years! However, Project Orion was canceled when considering that huge amounts of radioactive waste would be pumped into space.

No comments:

Post a Comment