Project Orion
Project Orion
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Summary
This is the story of "Orion", a secret project to propel a 4000-ton spaceship to Mars and Saturn using nuclear bombs. The apparently absurd project was abandoned by the US Government, but remains a tantalising "what if" story. The son of one of the project's physicists tells the tale.
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Project Orion by George Dyson
The race to the moon dominated space flight during the the 1960s yet, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US Government sponsored a project that could possibly have sent 150 people on expeditions to Mars or Saturn. The project was code-named "Orion" and centred upon the effort to develop a fast, manoeuvrable, nuclear-powered space vehicle for long-range voyages in space. The proposed 4000-ton spaceship would be propelled by nuclear bombs but, strictly classified, the project was never given a chance to succeed or fail - due partly to its apparent absurdity - but its mix of sublime physics, madcap engineering, and a cast of Cold War warriors and would-be inter-galactic engineers made the mission a tantalising "what if" story. In this book George Dyson, son of physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the original project team, pieces together the story his father could only tell him in fragments at the time.| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780140277326 |
| ISBN 10 | 0140277323 |
| Title | Project Orion |
| Author | George Dyson |
| Series | Penguin Press Science S |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2003-02-27 |
| Number of pages | 368 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |