[AR] Re: Nothing to do with rockets.
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2021 22:04:26 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 30 Sep 2021, Anthony Cesaroni wrote:
Orion is still one my favorites in terms of luxury and comfort. 😊
 ...
https://miro.medium.com/max/4000/0*IgLCGwubyLinrf0i.jpg
Alas, one number that is missing from happy pictures like this is
"radiation dose to crew". I was horrified when I saw the numbers in one
declassified report on the 10m designs -- the per-trip doses were up in a
range that, even in the 1960s, would have been classed as "perhaps
acceptable as a once-in-a-lifetime dose in a dire emergency". Nothing in
the text called attention to this; if you didn't know what the numbers
implied, you'd think everything was fine, but it wasn't. (And yes, this
was with the crew in a heavily-shielded "powered flight station" while
under thrust, not in the main living quarters.)
I conjecture that this was a scaling issue. Orion is known to work better
at really large sizes, and my guess is that the 10m designs -- shrunk so
that Saturn Vs could get them to orbit, or at least clear of the
atmosphere, before nuclear startup -- just couldn't carry adequate
shielding.
Between that, and the lack of the pure-fusion bombs that were necessary to
get fallout under control for Earth-surface launch, plus a few other
little environmental snags, it wasn't really a very appealing technology
when looked at closely. Spectacular, but not smart.
Henry
Other related posts:
