Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)
Project Orion is like a giant spaceship that can go very, very fast using the power of explosions made by little bombs that are nuclear.
Imagine you are in a car and want to go faster. One way to do that is to make the engine go "boom" more often. But with Project Orion, instead of gas, these booms are made by tiny, tiny nuclear bombs that are smaller than a pea.
Here is how it works:
The space ship is like an enormous plate, and the crew sits on top of it. In between the huge plate and the tiny bombs is a very thick, very strong layer that helps protect the people in the spaceship.
When the bunch of tiny bombs are set off, they all blow up at once and push the huge plate forward. Every time this happens, the spaceship goes forward a tiny bit faster. The bombs are put into a tube and the tube gets sealed up, so all the energy from the bombs goes in one direction: straight out the back of the tube.
This can make the spaceship go really fast - like way faster than a car, airplane, or even a rocket!
Project Orion never really got off the ground - it was just an idea that some really smart people did some work on in the 1950s and 1960s. But it was a super cool idea.
Imagine you are in a car and want to go faster. One way to do that is to make the engine go "boom" more often. But with Project Orion, instead of gas, these booms are made by tiny, tiny nuclear bombs that are smaller than a pea.
Here is how it works:
The space ship is like an enormous plate, and the crew sits on top of it. In between the huge plate and the tiny bombs is a very thick, very strong layer that helps protect the people in the spaceship.
When the bunch of tiny bombs are set off, they all blow up at once and push the huge plate forward. Every time this happens, the spaceship goes forward a tiny bit faster. The bombs are put into a tube and the tube gets sealed up, so all the energy from the bombs goes in one direction: straight out the back of the tube.
This can make the spaceship go really fast - like way faster than a car, airplane, or even a rocket!
Project Orion never really got off the ground - it was just an idea that some really smart people did some work on in the 1950s and 1960s. But it was a super cool idea.
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