strange idea

[jtkirk1701]

hey could you take a submarine. cut it into say five or six sections. put those sections on a delta whatever. then have them reassembled in space. you could add windows. bay doors. pausable exsirsion vehicles. with landing craft capablity.<br />drop the prop for a nuclear ion drive engine. with a solid rocket fuel supply to give it a second choice of engines. for safty if nothing else. hey if you had a lot of them maybe you could diassemble part of the ship to leave on the moon. then go back and get another group of sections??? i don't know? the dam thing should be able to handle some of those micrometerites they talk about...and it would clear out the ship yards to???

 

[vogon13]

Vehicles with this 'robust' level of construction were anticipated for the Orion project of the fifties and sixties. The large energy release and high efficiency of the nuclear propulsion allowed massive payloads.<br /><br />Seriously, one of the problems of the Orion concept was the apparent large size of the smallest practical ship, ~4000 <i><b>tons</b></i>!<br /><br />An early design of an Orion vessel included a barbers chair. Suspect it will be centuries before rocketry can loft such extravagant payloads.<br /><br />I would expect if interstellar colonizing ships are ever launched, vehicles similar to current submarines and aircraft carriers would be very desirable at the destination world to aid the colonization attempt. An uninhabited planet will have no transportation infrastructure existing on its continents, ocean going transportation is an obvious solution to this problem. With a potential payload of 25 million tons to the nearer stars, Orion starships would probably carry several submarine and aircraft carrier type vehicles. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[scottb50]

There are two problems, (at least), first a submarine is built to resist pressure trying to crush it from the outside, in Space you are trying to control pressure from the inside from blowing up the structure. Second the pressure differential in a Space vehicle is pretty mild as opposed to a submarine so you don't need anywhere near as much structure.<br /><br />Look at the difference between two similar aircraft, one pressurized and the other not, this is closer to the pressure differences being used. Being at high altitude is not that much different than being in Space. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jtkirk1701]

i have read that there are particals in space that can damage a ship in space. how much meterial is needed to stop a micrometorite. if this problem really exsists? also would there be any advantage in using a small surface vessel?<br />

 

[spacefire]

Orion is supposed to be accesible to our current technological level. except that it's highly radioactive. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

A current Orion design would have the advantage of another 40 years of nuclear weapons research. I suspect small, high efficiency nukes are available. Also, the radiation channel of the directed energy nuke can be filled with boron to absorb the nasties. Even with the weapons available in the 50s and 60s, radiation release during launch was expected to be less (much less) than a large fusion weapon test in the atmosphere.<br /><br />The nukes for even a (seemingly) large Orion craft are smaller than the Hiroshima device in yield.<br /><br />Really large Orion craft could be assembled in orbit (lunar perhaps) and then could be launched from there. Solar wind will dissipate the radiation from the bigger nukes from the space launched craft.<br /><br /><br />BTW, a possible challenge to launching an Orion craft from earth's surface, the fireball engulfment of the vehicle from the first few detonations, may have an easy solution.<br /><br />And no, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but its very clever, nearly existing technology, and light weight. Arthur Clarke would recognize it.<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>