Sizes of Orion Vehicles
The following can be found in George Dyson's book pg. 55 published in 2002. The figures for the comparison with Saturn V are taken from this section and converted from metric (kg) to US short tons.
| Orbital test |
Interplanetary | Advanced interplanetary |
Saturn V | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ship mass | 880 t | 4,000 t | 10,000 t | 3,350 t |
| Ship diameter | 25 m | 40 m | 56 m | 10 m |
| Ship height | 36 m | 60 m | 85 m | 110 m |
| Bomb yield (sea level) |
0.03 kt | 0.14 kt | 0.35 kt | n/a |
| Bombs (to 300 mi Low Earth Orbit) |
800 | 800 | 800 | n/a |
| Payload (to 300 mi LEO) |
300 t | 1,600 t | 6,100 t | 130 t |
| Payload (to Moon soft landing) |
170 t | 1,200 t | 5,700 t | 2 t |
| Payload (Mars orbit return) |
80 t | 800 t | 5,300 t | – |
| Payload (3yr Saturn return) |
– | – | 1,300 t | – |
In late 1958 to early 1959, it was realized that the smallest practical vehicle would be determined by the smallest achievable bomb yield. The use of 0.03 kT (sea-level yield) bombs would give vehicle mass of 880 tons. However, this was regarded as too small for anything other than an orbital test vehicle and the team soon focused on a 4,000 ton "base design".
At that time, the details of small bomb designs were shrouded in secrecy. Many Orion design reports had all details of bombs removed before release. Contrast the above details with the 1959 report by General Atomics, which explored the parameters of three different sizes of hypothetical Orion spacecraft:
| "Satellite" Orion |
"Midrange" Orion |
"Super" Orion |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Ship diameter | 17–20 m | 40 m | 400 m |
| Ship mass | 300 t | 1000–2000 t | 8,000,000 t |
| Number of bombs | 540 | 1080 | 1080 |
| Individual bomb mass | 0.22 t | 0.37–0.75 t | 3000 t |
The biggest design above is the "super" Orion design; at 8 million tonnes, it could easily be a city. In interviews, the designers contemplated the large ship as a possible interstellar ark. This extreme design could be built with materials and techniques that could be obtained in 1958 or were anticipated to be available shortly after. The practical upper limit is likely to be higher with modern materials.
Most of the three thousand tonnes of each of the "super" Orion's propulsion units would be inert material such as polyethylene, or boron salts, used to transmit the force of the propulsion units detonation to the Orion's pusher plate, and absorb neutrons to minimize fallout. One design proposed by Freeman Dyson for the "Super Orion" called for the pusher plate to be composed primarily of uranium or a transuranic element so that upon reaching a nearby star system the plate could be converted to nuclear fuel.
Read more about this topic: Project Orion (nuclear Propulsion)
Famous quotes containing the words orion and/or vehicles:
““You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands....””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Only by the supernatural is a man strong; nothing is so weak as an egotist. Nothing is mightier than we, when we are vehicles of a truth before which the state and the individual are alike ephemeral.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)