Thanks to nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqf5crgpaqepu6rur2gx98hvjtxdh2v9dnw9gvl2yu4e5g4p7v3q2qshxrxy (nprofile…xrxy) and his loyal followers, I'm about halfway through "Project Orion" by George Dyson.
It reminds me of trying to learn APL: there's a torrent of ideas that alternate between genius and insanity with an extremely high frequency. Amazing application of bomb technology and fundamental radiation physics crossed with absolutely bizarre engineering fueled by a Spaceman Spiff level of enthusiasm. There's something incredibly Calvin about the entire project.
"We need a 1000 meter diameter pusher plate to bounce nuclear-bomb-generated plasma off. The plasma material is urea - basically ionized pee. We set off one nuclear pee bomb every 30 seconds and we squirt grease onto the pusher plate between shots to keep the plasma from ablating the surface too badly. Oh, yeah - we also made the pusher plate out of depleted uranium so that in the time it would take to get to Alpha Centauri, enough plutonium would've been generated in the pusher plate that you could carve chunks off to use as fission reactors for the colonists.
What? No, I'm not high - we could really do this!"
"Project Orion" has the same batshit scientific theme as "Ignition!" but with more complex physics and less uncertainty and volatility of chemical propellant research (don't expect thd same prose - the book doesnt read like "Ignition!" at all). It's absolutely nuts but the nuclear engineering and radiation physics all work out. The materials engineering and fabrication are iffy but seem solvable with enough effort. If you wanted to do this badly enough you probably could. Just ignore everyone outside the asylum and focus on the problem.
Thanks to those nice people who pointed me towards this book. It's filled in some major gaps in my understanding of US nuclear history, primarily in the origin and purpose of General Atomic, developers of the TRIGA research reactor and MHTGR design and more recently (via a subsidiary) combat drones https://www.ga-asi.com/remotely-piloted-aircraft/gambit-series
arclight
npub1qs…ty42h
2025-03-26 13:28:02 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1qs2xm72kzfjvv4prrl5xnnnwmnrxk5tk689kusnwa20hsmu6532qfty42hSeen on
wss://relay.ditto.pubPublished at
2025-03-26 13:28:02 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Thanks to nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqf5crgpaqepu6rur2gx98hvjtxdh2v9dnw9gvl2yu4e5g4p7v3q2qshxrxy and his loyal followers, I'm about halfway through \"Project Orion\" by George Dyson.\n\nIt reminds me of trying to learn APL: there's a torrent of ideas that alternate between genius and insanity with an extremely high frequency. Amazing application of bomb technology and fundamental radiation physics crossed with absolutely bizarre engineering fueled by a Spaceman Spiff level of enthusiasm. There's something incredibly Calvin about the entire project.\n\n\"We need a 1000 meter diameter pusher plate to bounce nuclear-bomb-generated plasma off. The plasma material is urea - basically ionized pee. We set off one nuclear pee bomb every 30 seconds and we squirt grease onto the pusher plate between shots to keep the plasma from ablating the surface too badly. Oh, yeah - we also made the pusher plate out of depleted uranium so that in the time it would take to get to Alpha Centauri, enough plutonium would've been generated in the pusher plate that you could carve chunks off to use as fission reactors for the colonists.\n\nWhat? No, I'm not high - we could really do this!\"\n\n\"Project Orion\" has the same batshit scientific theme as \"Ignition!\" but with more complex physics and less uncertainty and volatility of chemical propellant research (don't expect thd same prose - the book doesnt read like \"Ignition!\" at all). It's absolutely nuts but the nuclear engineering and radiation physics all work out. The materials engineering and fabrication are iffy but seem solvable with enough effort. If you wanted to do this badly enough you probably could. Just ignore everyone outside the asylum and focus on the problem.\n\nThanks to those nice people who pointed me towards this book. It's filled in some major gaps in my understanding of US nuclear history, primarily in the origin and purpose of General Atomic, developers of the TRIGA research reactor and MHTGR design and more recently (via a subsidiary) combat drones https://www.ga-asi.com/remotely-piloted-aircraft/gambit-series",
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