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 The general atom intercities division of General Dynamics corporation
started with project Orion 1958 as an initiative. 3 federal agencies were
involved during his propagation time. ARPA, the AirForce and the NASA. It
ended in 1965 and swallowed 11 million $ altogether. The Orion strategy
intended to drive a very solid ship with atomic bombs. Warheads should be
shot behind the ship and taken to the explosion in distances of several
seconds. The force of the explosion would meet an extremely strong armor
plating, ride on the whole machinery so to speak on the shock wave. Although
no such ship was ever built it entered it for test vehicle, called for "Put-Put"
which used chemical explosive devices and reached an altitude of 60 m. In
addition, there were nuclear tests at which one had met with graphite coated
steel hemispheres of the compressional wave. At the end of the project one
thought to have solved all essential problems and could produce some
feasible outlines. Originally Orion hadn't been conceived for interstellar
journeys but one introduced a modifzierte version to the main one involved
at the project, Freeman Dyson, in 1968. After all, a speed of over 10000
km/s would have these therefore reaches 3% of the light velocity. Alpha
Centauri would be attainable in a century flying time. |
