Post by auntym on Dec 15, 2014 15:28:36 GMT -6
www.space.com/28013-ascension-syfy-tv-miniseries-project-orion.html?cmpid=514648
SyFy's 'Ascension' Takes 1960s Nuclear Spaceship Idea to the Stars
by Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor
December 15, 2014
The Orion-class spaceship Ascension serves as the star of SyFy's three-night miniseries "Ascension," about a generational starship mission launched in 1963.
The Orion-class spaceship Ascension serves as the star of SyFy's three-night miniseries "Ascension," about a generational starship mission launched in 1963.
Credit: SyFy/NBCUniversal
A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s.
In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear war an uncomfortable possibility. This leads to Project Ascension, led by a Werner von Braun-esque Abraham Enzmann, who dreamed up a spaceship taller than the Empire State Building that is propelled by nuclear bombs.
There is certainly a lot going on in "Ascension" to grab the average space fan, not the least of which is the fact that the ship Ascension itself is based on Project Orion, a real-life 1960s project by the U.S. government to build a 4,000 ton spaceship propelled through space by nuclear explosions. "Ascension" takes the potential of Project Orion and asks the simple question: What if the U.S. actually did it? [Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel]
Science fiction powered by space facts
The real-life Project Orion began in the late 1950s and ran through the early 1960s until it was shut down after the passage of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, according to a project description on NASA's Glenn Research Center website. But the promise of such a craft was tantalizing, especially given how it worked.
"About five bombs per second are dropped out the back and detonated to propel the craft along. A huge shock plate with shock absorbers make up the base of the craft," reads one NASA description. "Experiments using conventional explosives were conducted to demonstrate the viability of this scheme. Although this vehicle was conceived to take a crew to Mars, it can also be considered for sending smaller probes to the stars." [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)]
CONTINUE READING: www.space.com/28013-ascension-syfy-tv-miniseries-project-orion.html?cmpid=514648
SyFy's 'Ascension' Takes 1960s Nuclear Spaceship Idea to the Stars
by Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor
December 15, 2014
The Orion-class spaceship Ascension serves as the star of SyFy's three-night miniseries "Ascension," about a generational starship mission launched in 1963.
The Orion-class spaceship Ascension serves as the star of SyFy's three-night miniseries "Ascension," about a generational starship mission launched in 1963.
Credit: SyFy/NBCUniversal
A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s.
In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear war an uncomfortable possibility. This leads to Project Ascension, led by a Werner von Braun-esque Abraham Enzmann, who dreamed up a spaceship taller than the Empire State Building that is propelled by nuclear bombs.
There is certainly a lot going on in "Ascension" to grab the average space fan, not the least of which is the fact that the ship Ascension itself is based on Project Orion, a real-life 1960s project by the U.S. government to build a 4,000 ton spaceship propelled through space by nuclear explosions. "Ascension" takes the potential of Project Orion and asks the simple question: What if the U.S. actually did it? [Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel]
Science fiction powered by space facts
The real-life Project Orion began in the late 1950s and ran through the early 1960s until it was shut down after the passage of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, according to a project description on NASA's Glenn Research Center website. But the promise of such a craft was tantalizing, especially given how it worked.
"About five bombs per second are dropped out the back and detonated to propel the craft along. A huge shock plate with shock absorbers make up the base of the craft," reads one NASA description. "Experiments using conventional explosives were conducted to demonstrate the viability of this scheme. Although this vehicle was conceived to take a crew to Mars, it can also be considered for sending smaller probes to the stars." [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)]
CONTINUE READING: www.space.com/28013-ascension-syfy-tv-miniseries-project-orion.html?cmpid=514648