Electromagnetic Pulse as a Result of Nuclear Pulse

PropulsionMy study of Project Orion

Description Project Orion is a spacecraft designed to

be launched by rapid nuclear bursts on the back end of it.

A pusher plate causes it to be propelled forward. See picture below.

Stanislaw Ulam On the Original

Manhattan Project. There he came up with

the idea to build a spacecraft powered by nuclear bombs

Only decided on an unmanned project, never a manned one.

Very important to the development of the Hydrogen bomb.

Freeman Dyson Well known for uniting

the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics. (QED)

Became acquainted with Ted Taylor in the TRIGA project.

Was responsible for figuring out the physics behind Project Orion.

Probably the most famous scientist involved in Project Orion.

Theodore Taylor Flunked out of grad.

School in nuclear science in the late 1940’s

Went to work at Los Alamos as a Junior scientist in the fission bomb department.

Designed the largest, smallest, and most efficient fission bombs.

Ted Taylor (continued) He soon finished his Ph.D., and stopped

working for Los Alamos soon afterwards. After Los Alamos, he worked at General

Atomic, developing the TRIGA reactor with Freeman Dyson.

On October 4, 1957, the same day Sputnik was launched, he had a new idea, one that would leave the world wondering, should it be built? His idea came to be known as Project Orion.

History of Orion Started by General Atomic in 1958. Funded by the Atomic Energy Committee

at first. Funded mainly by the Air Force research

center throughout it’s history. Most popular in 1962. Died because it was thought too radical in

1963.

Various Tests Done Originally

There were many tests to try to protect the pusher plate against the nuclear blast. It was found if a plate is greased, it is protected.

There were several tests that used conventional weapons to test the theory.

A model was built called the Hotrod. The Hotrod at first stayed on the launch

pad.

This is the Hot Rod that would not launch. It was found that it was too heavy, and stripped down to the bare essentials to attempt to launch it.

Hot rod, too heavy.

This is the striped down Hot Rod. The next slide will test if this will launch or not.

Hot Rod Stripped Down.

Hot Rod Test

Test results As you can see, the Hot Rod launched. It’s max height was about 100 m. The film inspired Van Braun to promote

Orion. Van Braun was the principal creator in the liquid chemical rocket.

The Hot Rod currently resides in the Smithsonian Institute.

There is a theory that this chemical pulse propulsion might be a good way to get into space.

More about OrionBelow is a diagram of how Orion would work, in a nutshell.

Forces on OrionThe green circle in this diagram represents the pushing power of Orion. The yellow circle represents the explosion part of the Orion.

More Orion Pictures

Orion as compared to the Saturn V

Smaller Orion on it’s way to Mars

Book on Project Orion

Pros of Orion Could carry over 1000 tons of payload

beyond the Earth and back. A Saturn V, the largest rocket ever built, could only carry a tenth of that into orbit, not traveling the greater distance to Saturn and back.

Could potentially travel anywhere in the Solar System, to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, or anywhere really.

Would have high ISP and Thrust.

Thrust The thrust of a rocket is it’s ability to

accelerate. This is critical if you want to arrive at the destination faster, especially if it is nearby.

Most chemical rockets have high thrust. Most newer efficient drives such as the

Ion drive have very low thrust. Orion has a thrust similar to Chemical

rockets, it can accelerate very fast.

ISP ISP is a measure of how efficient a rocket is. It is

measured in pounds thrust per pound propellant. A typical ISP for a chemical rocket is 300. That is

not high enough to achieve orbit in one stage. Orion’s ISP is about 10,000, which is about the

same as the ultra-efficient Ion drive. Other forms of nuclear power are lower thrust

and slightly lower ISP. Orion’s combination of Thrust and ISP is what

allowed it to even be considered.

Cons Pusher Plate Similar to H-bombs Fallout Misfire Electromagnetic Pulse(EMP) Space EMP

H-bomb Similarities Hydrogen bombs use fission triggers to

create fusion explosions. Orion pulse units are closely related to

hydrogen bombs. Both use shaped nuclear charges

Below is a picture of an Orion pulse unit.

Fallout Fallout is the radiation damage caused

from the launch of a nuclear bomb. The fallout expected for an Orion launch

is about 1% of the combined atmospheric nuclear testing from Russia and the United States

It is estimated that it would kill 20 people randomly throughout the world.

This would be reduced greatly if launched at the poles, as little radiation would return from space.

Why is fallout reduced at poles?

The picture to the right shows Earth’s

Magnetic Field lines. If launched near the Magnetic

North Pole, particles are

allowed to escape the earth, instead of being trapped by to fall to the Earth at a later

date.

Need for Simulator As I approached the last problems, that of

EMP, misfires, and space EMP, the need to do large numbers of calculations began to sink upon me.

I decided to resolve this by programming a computer program to do all of this for me.

My simulator Below is a snapshot of the simulator The simulator measures escape velocity,

gravity, velocity, altitude, and mass of Orion spacecraft.

This is what the simulator looks like when it is complete. Note that the velocity is greater than the escape velocity.

Process Building the Orion simulator required a

great deal of research. It is not perfect, but it is close enough to provide reasonable estimates to what I tested.

The power figures were based on 200 bombs to 125,000 ft. high. I found these to be off the optimum, so I made them optimum. It tests up to 800 bombs fired.

This also required research on my part on the effects of gravity.

Formulas Here are a few formulas that played key

roles in my simulator

F

ma

rr

GmMFg ˆ

2

E

Eesc R

GMv

2

Misfiring One of my major concerns was, what if a nuke

misfires? To test this, I put a random factor of misfiring

into my simulator, and had it abort if it ran into the ground.

Remember, Orion was launched from 135 ft. The tests came back that it would take almost

half of the nukes to fail to have Orion hit the ground, which is plenty safe in my view, as only 1% of nukes do not explode.

EMP EMP is the effect of a nuclear bomb that

tends to destroy electrical equipment for large areas.

EMP has not been tested to any great degree, and there is no declassified formulas for estimating the area affected by nuclear bombs.

EMP is actually a wave of electrons which will often be too many for electronics to hold, causing them to burn.

EMP(continued) I used the probably false assumption that

EMP power is linear based on size. I then took estimates for the amount of damage done, based off of declassified works.

I based my figures by taking the Starfish Prime nuclear test of Project Dominic. There a 1.4 megaton bomb launched 400km above the ground damaged a radius of at least 1300 km. Note that the actual area is probably more.

I calibrated these so that a number of 100 would destroy most electronics, and anything higher would be more destructive.

Formulas for EMP These formulas were used to determine

line of site, distance from a point on a circle based on arc length, and distance EMP traveled through the atmosphere.

bombsOrion ofPower EMPE

Simulator.by Figured

Power Reference EMPE

*20*1450

2

1

12

EE

Power EMPE

groundonpointtobombfromLengthr

IndexDamageD

2

r

ED

(m)detonation of Altitudea

0 ground from surface sEarth' thealong Distancec

km10*37.6RadiusEarth R

2cos

2sin

6E

2

a

R

cRR

R

cRd

EEE

EE

altitudea

km10*6.37Radius sEarth'R 5E

22

EEMax RaRE

Results from EMP testing My results were saved into a file for later

use. This file included the distance from

ground 0, the most powerful strike of EMP, the number of EMP strikes in that area, and the altitude of the first strike of EMP.

Note that this segment is the most useful because it is the cutoff for 100 level EMP strikes.

Results page

Dis. # dam Alt.269 725 103 30102270 725 103 30102271 725 102 30102272 725 102 30102273 725 101 30102274 725 101 30102275 725 100 30102276 725 100 30102277 725 99 30102278 725 99 30102279 725 98 30102280 725 98 30102281 725 97 30102282 725 97 30102

To the right is a sample of a part of the results. Note that the entire file is much larger than this.This piece was chosen because it is the point where the EMP is first considered dangerous.

KEYDis=Distance from ground 0#= Num. of nukesDam= Max. Damage indexAlt=Altitude of max dam.

Graphical Results

Damage of Electromagnetic Pulse

0100200300400

1

123

245

367

489

611

733

855

977

Distance from ground 0(km)

EM

P d

am

ag

e

ind

ex

Series1

Final results from EMP. As the last page tells, there is a radius of

about 276 km, or 170 miles that is affected significantly.

Remember that this is probably not accurate, but is a good estimate. In reality, EMP changes with location, my results figured nothing based upon that.

The only place on the globe that this would not cause significant damage is at the poles. These aren’t going to be launched from the continental US.

Space EMP Space EMP is the effect of nuclear weapons

to damage satellites in low earth orbits. It could cause millions of dollars in damage,

but would not effect the critical satellites for communications.

It is caused when nuclear blasts take place in the Van Allen belts, or other magnetic field lines. Those in the Van Allen belts are the worst.

The best test I could do was to measure the number of blasts taking place in or near the belts.

Space EMP results I calculated that no blasts to take place in

the Van Allen belts, if launched near the equator

Although none were launched in the Van Allen belts, there would be some damage, esp. to low earth satellites, such as the ISS and Hubble.

A good defense against this is to launch at either of the poles, which also reduces fallout and EMP.

Final Conclusion As a whole, I would sate that Orion is very

dangerous if not used properly, and probably would cause a great deal of damaged.

However, I do not think that if it was launched at the poles it would cause much of this damage.

I conclude that an Orion ground launch would be safe enough by my standards, if launched at the poles, and a way was found to reduce fallout even more, but should be a cooperative effort among all of the industrialized countries of the world.

Where it could be launched