Topic: First Contact....

[Cleaven]

I could readily imagine an Orion style ship being used to get into orbit in a post nuclear war period. It would be excellent for lifting the heavy loads one could assume is required for a warp core, and fuel units would be readily available. And who's going to care about a little but more contamination.  

[Stormbringer]

The ones I'm talking about were basically steam engines whose heat source is the heat of a nuclear reactor. The exhaust is steam. It would be ahrmless unless it crashed. There were other programs that developed engines that harnessed nuclear blasts to propel the ship. They can reach a small but significant fraction o fthe speed of light they would be built in space and never touch down again. They would only be nuking empty space. I think someone mentioned one, Orion; I believe. All these conceptual studies (orion, et al.) and test engines (Nirva and minerva) were abandoned some time ago though there is talk of bringing them back to get to mars.

[Magnum357]

They HAVE too bring those projects back because conventional rockets aren't going to cut it.  Remember how big the Saturn Rockets where too get a Man on the moon?  All that Rocket and Fuel too get a pay load smaller then the Space Shuttle (I think?).  I just don't think a conventional Rocket is going too cut it too get too Mars.  the ship is going to have too be much bigger then the Command Modules that went too the moon and your going too need more pay load for food and living space.  And if the ship needs too make course corrections it needs a powersource that is substantially more effiecent then Solid Rocket fuel engines.  

Heck, going too Mars is going too be much more difficult too do then going too the moon.  If we are going too do this, we might aswell go their with a whole crew of people and setup a Basecamp that is fully capable of sustaining themselves on their own.  Kinda like the Base they have down at the South Pole, only much more isolated.  And have Automated Rocket ships once a year send supplies that are needed for the Basecamp.  From their, the Scienctists, Miners, constructors can assemble the beginnings of a true coloney and maybe even start concepts for Terra Forming.  I say if your going too do this, have long term plans in mind and not go their just plant a flag and say "I was here!" and then leave.  Waste of resources, time, and money in my opinion.

[Stormbringer]

Well they could do it with conventional rockets. It would be slow and smaller than necessary. They will probably use a faster technology to get there in times humans could tolerate. It might be fission, fusion, ion, solar sail or laser propulsion. They need to get the trip time down to under four months. Those are the only way to do that. there are a lot of semi independant groups studying ways to do it. try looking at a site called space.com and searching for mars articles.

[mathcubeguy]

Is 600 million a reasonable number of deaths from a nuclear war?

[Stormbringer]

really; are any number of deaths reasonable? Projections in the former cold war from population figures at the time elude me. 600 milion is likely to be a low end figure. It is more likely to be into the billions particularly if long term incidental deaths due to cancer and such are taken into account. I was discussing spacecraft. not nuclear war. I was in a tangental subthread to the original thread.  

[vsfedwards]

Quote:
I didn't mean those little test ones, I meant the big ones that are loaded in the silos that would erase New York or London in one pop.  

Havnt had the chance to read this, but thought Id say London is tiny.

[Stormbringer]

Hey MCG! There is no need to edit your post it's not like you kicked my puppies or anything. There is room for a nuclear war subthread and it was discussed further up in the thread's hiarchical tree. You post was not offensive or anything; just misplaced. post it back.