Wednesday, July 27, 2005

chief Soviet specialist- atom mongers

More details on the meeting touched on Project Orion
"A meeting of Party and Goverment Leaders with the Atomic Scientists"-July 10,1961


"In the early '60s, Sakharov, I remember, once invited us into his
office and told us about this idea for an interstellar space ship that
would be propelled through space by micro nuclear explosions. "

Former USSR Minister and current Russian Deputy Minister of Atomic
Energy (MinAtom) Victor Mikhailov recalling discussing nuclear powered
rockets with Andrei Sakharov ca. 1961. From an interview for Nuclear
Dynamite, 1998.




atom mongers meet as seen at

In the Soviet Union the idea of the use of nuclear charges in space technology was advanced more than 30 years ago. Academician Andrey Saxarov was the initiator of consideration. During July 1961 all chief Soviet specialist- atom mongers obtained urgent invitation into the Kremlin.
...
At the same encounter Saxarov presented to Head of The State and the idea of nuclear explosive-years, similar according to the sense to the project "Orion". Structurally Saxarov's explosive-years it had to consist of control compartment, crew compartment, section for positioning of nuclear charges, main propulsion engine system and liquid propellant rocket engines. Ship also had to have a feed system of nuclear charges and a system of damping for the levelling off of rocket after nuclear explosions. Well and, of course, the tanks of a sufficient tank for the fuel stocks and oxidizer. In the lower part of the ship had to be fastened the screen with a diameter of 15-25 m, in focus of which had to "thunder" the nuclear explosions.
Ground start was achieved with the use the liquid propellant rocket engines, placed on the lower supports. Fuel- and was intended to give oxidizer from the external attached fuel tanks, which could be thrown out after emptying. On the liquid-propellant engines the apparatus rose to an altitude of several kilometers (or tens of kilometers), after which was included the main propulsion engine system of ship, in which was used the energy of the sequential explosions of the nuclear charges of low power.
In the process of the work on the constructions of different overall sizes were explosive-in summer examined and counted several versions. Respectively changed the starting mass, and the mass of payload, which it was possible to put into orbit. But it is necessary to note that, in spite of the significant masses of construction, it was not characterized by large sizes. For example, "PK -3000" ("the manned complex" with a starting mass of 3000 t) had the height of approximately 60 m, and "PK -5000" ("the manned complex" with a starting mass of 5000 t) - less than 75 m. the payload, concluded in orbit, in these versions it was 800 and 1300 t respectively.
Elementary calculation shows that the mass-ratio of payload to the starting mass exceeded 25%! But indeed contemporary rocket on the chemical fuel derives into space not more than 7-8% of the starting mass.
As the launch pad for the "explosive-years" they selected one of the regions on the north of the Soviet Union - designers assumed that for the start of new spacecraft it is necessary to construct special spaceport. Place for it was selected on the basis of two considerations. First, the north latitudes made it possible to lay the course of the rocket above the almost inaccessible sparsely populated regions, and in the case of emergency this made it possible to avoid excess victims. In the second place, the "starting" of nuclear engine far from the equatorial plane out of the zone of the so-called trapping region of geomagnetic field made it possible to avoid the appearance of artificial radiation belts.
deology prevented further development of the idea of Saxarov's explosive-years. In regard to this in the Soviet scientific publications they spoke out as follows: "... frequently the attractiveness of explosive thermonuclear engines explains by the possibility to usefully consume with their aid the accumulated in a number of the countries reserves of the thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs, when the peoples of peace come to agreement about the world disarmament. It is seemed to us that neither with the political nor from a technical point of view this reason is maintained criticism. The accumulated thermonuclear weapon can be utilized, if this it is necessarily for achievement of more total discharging, where it is more effective within the more short time, without expending long years on the expectation of that, when the most unique and complex new engineering space construction is created.
"apparently, the appearance of the first models of thermonuclear power engineering in the industrial arena should be expected toward the end of our century. This will open before humanity the extraordinary horizons, will make it possible to restore the resources of our planet... "- this thought, expressed by the outstanding Soviet physicist by the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR academician a. p. Aleksandrov, as it cannot better confirms the considerations given above. First, before the appearance of space thermonuclear engines still far, whereas discharging and peaceful utilization of combat thermonuclear charges are the requirement of our time. In the second place, is even now obvious the importance of scientific studies on the practical application of thermonuclear power engineering, including in cosmonautics... "
I.e., it was implied that the disarmament with the liquidation of nuclear arsenals will set in where earlier than will be built ship. Time showed the absurdity of similar expectations. It turned out that the disarmament and the liquidation of nuclear arsenals is in no way connected with each other, and Saxarov's explosive-years both not it was and no.
Contemporary engineers turned themselves to the ideas of our outstanding compatriot. They indicate that the apparatus proposed by Saxarov does not maintain criticism from the point of view of today's ideas about the ecology and safety. The reason for return to the examination of this project consists in the fact that arose the demand for the technologies, capable of protecting the Earth from the collision with the comet or the asteroid. The enormous nuclear charge, which must be somehow delivered to the purpose, is the thus far only method of eliminating this danger. For this it is proposed as the charge carrier to use Saxarov's explosive-years.
In contrast to the previous project, in which was assumed the starting from the earth's surface that hopelessly from the point of view of ecology and safety, the start of new "explosive-years" is assumed from the orbital trajectory. Due to this the construction will become lighter and simpler.
The operating principle of "explosive-years" consists in the creation of mechanical impulse on the screen ("sail") due to the explosive energy of charge. To carry out construction of engine system is possible in two diverse variants. In one case as basis is placed the simple exchange of the kinetic energy between the screen and the dispersion work substance, located directly on the charge, while in other - pressure impulse on the screen is transformed due to the warming-up of the special substance, supplied on the surface of screen directly up to the moment of sequential explosion, version with the "sweating screen". The construction of this "explosive-years" assumes payload in 1000 t.

SRB cost per kwh compared to Orion

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/6d5cd98d21942357?hl=en&
"bombardmentforce Jul 27, 9:54 am
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if, rec.arts.sf.science
From: "bombardmentforce" Date: 27 Jul 2005 06:54:47 -0700
Subject: Re: The Soviet O'Neill Habitats

By way of comparison the shuttle orbiter has 52,578 Kwh of energy at
seperation roughly 37,541 Kwh of that from the SRBs so the solid rocket
cost per delivered kwh works out to about 1,598 $2001. "


References
----------

Sme Thrust: 28.6 %
SRB Thrust:71.4 % of total
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/srb.html
alt at sep: 150,000 feet= 45720 m = *9.81 .419416 megajoules/kg = 33,002 Mj= kwh
vel at seperation: 6536 ft/sec= 1992 m/s = 1/2 * 78,687 * 3.968408 = 156,131 mega joules= kwh

Cost: 30 million $2001 each
http://www.orbit6.com/crisf/text/shc_tom.htm
mass of shuttle:78,687 kg OV-104 Atlantis
---
1598.23608 $/kwh 37541.39 Kwh

---

m/ft =.3048
KILOWATT HOUR /JOULES = 2.77800E-07
killowatt hour / megajoule = 2.778 e-01

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Soviet Orion to Luna to L5 Fuel costs

Rough notes for calculations- to be cleaned up



--------------------
SIZE OF THE FIREBALL
http://web.archive.org/web/20010417172329/http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/nukeffct/enw77b3.htm

2.127 The size of the fireball increases with the energy yield of the explosion. Because of the complex interaction of hydrodynamic and radiation factors, the radius of the fireball at the thermal minimum is not very different for air and surface bursts of the same yield. The relationship between the average radius and the yield is then given approximately by

R (at thermal minimum) » 90 W0.4

where R is the fireball radius in feet and W is the explosion yield in kilotons TNT equivalent. The breakaway phenomenon, on the other hand, is determined almost entirely by hydrodynamic considerations, so that a distinction should be made between air and surface bursts. For an air burst the radius of the fireball is given by

R (at breakaway) for air burst » 110 W0.4, (2.127.1)

For a contact surface burst, i.e., in which the exploding weapon is actually on the surface,[8] blast wave energy is reflected back from the surface into the fireball (§ 3.34) and W in equation (2.127.1) should probably be replaced by 2 W, where W is the actual yield. Hence, for a contact surface burst,

R (at breakaway) for contact surface burst » 145 W0.4. (2.127.2)

For surface bursts in the transition range between air bursts and contact bursts, the radius of the fireball at breakaway is somewhere between the values given by equations (2.127.1) and (2.127.2). The size of the fireball is not well defined in its later stages, but as a rough approximation the maximum radius may be taken to be about twice that at the time of breakaway (cf. Fig. 2.121).

2.128 Related to the fireball size is the question of the height of burst at which early (or local) fallout ceases to be a serious problem. As a guide, it may be stated that this is very roughly related to the weapon yield by

H (maximum for local fallout) » 180 W0.4 (2.128.1)

where H feet is the maximum value of the height of burst for which there will be appreciable local fallout. This expression is plotted in Fig. 2.128. For an explosion of 1,000 kilotons, i.e., 1 megaton yield, it can be found from Fig. 2.128 or equation (2.128.1) that significant local fallout is probable for heights of burst less than about 2,900 feet. It should be emphasized that the heights of burst estimated in this manner are approximations only, with probable errors of +30 percent. Furthermore, it must not be assumed that if the burst height exceeds the value given by equation (2.128.1) there will definitely be no local fallout. The amount, if any, maybe expected, however, to be small enough to be tolerable under emergency conditions.


------------------------------
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/fd706f0702b4b1fd?hl=en&

From: David Johnson - Find messages by this author
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:08:29 GMT
Subject: Re: The Soviet O'Neill Habitats
"bombardmentforce" wrote in
news:1122386192.913669.271340@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> Derek Lyons wrote:
>> Luke7...@aol.com wrote:

>> >Well, yes. But I think we'd have to be rather further back than that.
>> >Hauling up the various bits and peices to build an O'Neill habitat
>> >would be really, really pricey via OTL's rocket tech.

>> That's mostly because OTL has never spent any real attention to
>> decreasing costs. The current (high) costs are an artifact of
>> history, not a certainty.

>> >Hence, the appeal of Orion.

>> An Orion isn't really much cheaper than an ordinary rocket in OTL.
>> Nuclear weapons (excuse me, "plasma pulse units") are expensive little
>> beasties.

>> D.

> Care to elaborate? Expensive per what energy unit?

> "Hydrogen bombs are the only way to burn the cheapest fuel we have,
> deuterium."
> "...fuel cost for deuterium is about .0003(1968) cent per kilowatt
> hour."
> Freeman Dyson - Interstellar Transport - Physics Today October 1968

Actual cost of _fuel_ (unless you're talking about something ridiculously
exotic) has always been the tiniest percentage of the total cost of a
launch. Yes, deuterium is pretty cheap on a money per unit of energy
basis. And if that was it, you might save, oh, a few hundred thousand
dollars per launch over using Kerosene & LOX (out of tens or hundreds of
millions of total launch costs). On that basis, _fuel_ costs into orbit
would probably be about the same as gas costs to drive from L.A. to
Phoenix and your cost per pound into orbit drops from a tiny, tiny bit.

Current costs per pound to LEO are around $2,000-$5,000 per pound. Of
that, about _$10_ a pound is the fuel costs (for kerosene/LOX). From a
fuel-costs standpoint - even if the deutronium is _free_ - you've saved
at most one-half of a percent of the total launch costs. This may not be
worth it...

...now also remember that to _use_ that deuterium in an Orion, you have
to build it into a very expensive, technologically tricky bomb...lots and
_lots_ of very expensive, technologically tricky bombs. Imagine your gas
costs on that Phoenix trip if the gasoline was built in to an engine -
and you had to replace that engine every mile.

Orion works pretty much like that.

David

--------------------------------------------------
90$(1997) per WU

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/u-centrifuge.htm
--------------------------------------------------------
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/31b024b78b69cf79?hl=en&Derek Lyons Jul 26, 1:40 pm show options
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if, rec.arts.sf.science
From: fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) - Find messages by this author
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 17:40:05 GMT
Local: Tues,Jul 26 2005 1:40 pm
Subject: Re: The Soviet O'Neill Habitats

"bombardmentforce" wrote:
>Derek Lyons wrote:
>> An Orion isn't really much cheaper than an ordinary rocket in OTL.
>> Nuclear weapons (excuse me, "plasma pulse units") are expensive little
>> beasties.

>Care to elaborate? Expensive per what energy unit?

>"Hydrogen bombs are the only way to burn the cheapest fuel we have,
>deuterium." "...fuel cost for deuterium is about .0003(1968) cent per
>kilowatt hour."
>Freeman Dyson - Interstellar Transport - Physics Today October 1968

It takes a good deal (kilograms) of the *most* expensive fuel we have
(supergrade uranium and plutonium) to burn a trivial amount (grams) of
the 'cheapest' fuel. Dyson predicated Orion's low cost on something
that has never materialized (despite an intensive search) - light,
cheap hydrogen weapons that didn't use fission to initiate fusion.

D.

---------
http://print.google.com/print?id=8droMxkxnDwC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=warhead+cost&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Ddavy%2Bcrockett%2Bnuclear%2Bcost%26btnG%3DSearch&sig=MANYHjdPSC1gztZHTiEtsukxwk0
w74 452,000 $1973 canceled
w75 400,000 $1973
w82 4,000,000 $1982 2kt 43 kg n
w84 1,100,000 $1981
w80-1 720,000 $1990
-----
http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM

Between 1956 and 1963, 2,100 were produced at an estimated cost
(excluding the warhead) of $540 million (in constant 1996 dollars).
257,000 each

http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/weapons.htm

http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/rdt.htm

$165 billion from 1948 to 1995) associated with the production of
nuclear weapons materials (highly-enriched uranium, plutonium and
tritium).

13. Fissile material produced: 104 metric tons of
plutonium and 994 metric tons of highly-enriched
uranium


6. Total number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built,
1945-1990: more than 70,000/65 types

-------------------
Tritium Cost Per gram 23,000
LiD6 $ Per Kg 15,000
LiD7 $ Per Kg 1,500
Reactor PU $/Kg 5,000

Mega Joules / KT 4,120,000
h2+o2 MJ /Kg 6.67

0.3 $/KG Jet A
2 $/KG H2
15000 $/ Kg Li(6) D
50000 $/ Kg (BG) Pu

W-80

150 Kilotons
4,600,000 $
30666.66667 $/KT
30.66666667 $/Ton
4.12E+12 Joules / KT
6.18E+14 Joules / Blast
7.44337E-09 $/ Joule
0.007443366 $/ Megajoule
26.7961165 $/ Megajoule Hour

Isp =144 sqrt(heat in Kj/mol/mass of propellant g/mol)
------------------
JOULES
KILOWATT HOURS
2.77800E-07
JOULES
WATT HOURS
2.77800E-04
JOULES
WATT SECONDS
1
---------------------
------------------------------------------------

Cross format debate

in Thread
-----

Derek Lyons wrote:
> Luke7351@aol.com wrote:
>
> >Well, yes. But I think we'd have to be rather further back than that.
> >Hauling up the various bits and peices to build an O'Neill habitat
> >would be really, really pricey via OTL's rocket tech.
>
> That's mostly because OTL has never spent any real attention to
> decreasing costs. The current (high) costs are an artifact of
> history, not a certainty.
>
> >Hence, the appeal of Orion.
>
> An Orion isn't really much cheaper than an ordinary rocket in OTL.
> Nuclear weapons (excuse me, "plasma pulse units") are expensive little
> beasties.
>
> D.

Response

Care to elaborate? Expensive per what energy unit?

"Hydrogen bombs are the only way to burn the cheapest fuel we have, deuterium."
"...fuel cost for deuterium is about .0003 (1968) cent per kilowatt
hour."
Freeman Dyson - Interstellar Transport - Physics Today October 1968

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/72384bc6fedf5014?hl=en&

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/6d8a71293183ff9b?hl=en&
--------------------------------
Calculations
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c2.html#orion plus new column

Gross Mass 4,000 tons 10,000 tons 380,000 tons
Propulsion System Mass 1,700 tons 3,250 tons 123,500 tons
Exhaust Velocity 39,000 m/s 120,000 m/s 120,000 m/s optimize for L5
Diameter 41 m 56 m 345 m
Height 61 m 85 m
Average acc up to 2 g up to 4 g up to 4 g
Thrust 8e7 N 4e8 N 1.52e10 N
Propellant Mass Flow 2000 kg/s 3000 kg/s 114,000 kg/s
Atm. charge size 0.15 kt 0.35 kt 13.3 kt
Space charge size 5 kt 15 kt 570 kt
Num charges to 38,000 m 200 200 200
Total yield to 38,000 m 100 kt 250 kt 9.5 mt
Num ch. for 480km orbit 800 800 800- add Luna and L5 legs
Tot yield 480 km orbit 3 mt 9 mt 342 mt
Payload 1,600 t 6,100 t 231,800 t
Tons of Pulse units used 700 t 650 t 24,700 t
Average size 1,750 lb 1,625 lb 30 t


--------------------------------
Another response

John Schilling wrote:
> In article <1122388443.059460.212670@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> bombardmentforce says...
>
> >>He was talking about interstellar Orion (enormous vehicle)
>
> >>an Orion intended...launch vehicle. ... would use rather low yield
> >fission bombs.
>
> >The Soviet L5 lifter would have to be huge and should use medium size
> >fusion dominated pulse units.
>
> Yes, but the Soviets would have had more urgent need of those "fusion
> dominated pulse units", to wage the global thermonuclear war that would
> ensue from the rest of the world's realization that the Russians were
> actually going ahead with such a scheme.
>
> You're talking about tens of thousands of megatons worth of nuclear
> airbursts, and hundreds to low thousands of megatons of groundbursts.
> Even with "fusion dominated pulse units", that's a global catastrophe
> in the megadeath range, and the portions of the globe that are not the
> Soviet Union are going to react poorly to that sort of thing.
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=mj98norris
"The total energy release for all 715 (Soviet) tests is estimated to be 285.4
megatons, with 1961 and 1962 alone accounting for 220 megatons or 77
percent of the total. The amount after 1963 is 38 megatons, all
underground....The U.S. total yield was about 179 megatons; 38 megatons underground."

So that's 247 and 141 for a total of 386 megatons aboveground.

The proposed 380,000 ton Soviet orion uses 342 megatons launch of the core structure of a Dumbbell shaped colony to 480km orbit. So your megatonnage estimates are high and should not include groundburts, the intial burst is only 13.3 kt and would not contact the ground.


----------------------------------------


References
Mass of dumbbell design 380 kiltotons
Plus 33.5 megatons of shield, lunar material prefered.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Mechanical Engineering

Project Orion calls for advanced and creative mechanical design, illustrated here.


Blogged here.


Animated here.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Jackass flats: map of blast damage zone


Here's the blast zone for the 4,000 ton interplanatary Orion lanched with .15 kt intial blasts:



Don't put any frame houses closer than 2000 feet from your launch site.

This site can handle blasts up to 50 megatons, so you could launch a 1,333,333,333 ton Orion with the blast zone all on government land.