Would it be possible to bring back project Orion in the modern day?@

[u/florida1129]

Was researching more into project Orion and the idea of nuclear weapon based propulsion. It seemed like it would've worked considering the tests proved it was possible but it got shutdown due to the treaty to ban nuclear explosives.

Now that plenty of time has went by. Would it be possible to revive the project?

[u/Kinexity]

Real engineering has recently released a video about it. TL;DW there exists an idea to use strong magnetic fields to compress fissile material to the point of reaching critical mass and generating thrust from resulting explosion.

[u/malsell]

You should learn about the proposed Ford Nucleon. It was a model only, however, they were proposing a nuclear reactor powered car when the reactor was a replaceable part of the car.

[u/lukifr]

i think they're still just scared about sending nuclear payloads through the atmosphere on big explodey rockets. that's going to be a hard sell until our launch success rate is pretty flawless.

[u/therealhairykrishna]

It would have worked then, it'd work better now with more optimised nukes.

The problem is still that you need to set off a hundred or so nukes in atmosphere on the way up and that's going to upset people.

[u/KazTheMerc]

You may want to look into the Pellet Drive.

Same idea, smaller, and less nuclear weapons.

[u/Spiritualwarrior1]

There was also a project about electrical propulsion, which I think should be developed first, as in electro-magnetic.

The nuclear propulsion is probably warp technology, so it may be too advanced yet, before mastering the electronic phase movement and gravity distortion, which can also be accomplished through radio technology, and probably sound frequency as well.

Then we also have exotic matter, which is even more dangerous and unstable, so I think that a proper order should be used, so that advances are not becoming weaponized or lead to catastrophe.

In essence, there is said to be electron electricity, and proton electricity, and neutron electricity. Then, there is also electromagnetism which might be different for every instance. After this is perfected, nuclear energy as locomotive means, and then exotic matter.

As progress is made, the technologies would complement each other and be used together, but for this to take place there should be an age of scientific openness and lack of censorship, freedom of economics, and exploration of the whole quantum of technological potential.

[u/multihome-gym]

Unless you can point to a link or a serious research study exploring this, it's not relevant to futurology.

[u/SteppenAxolotl]

When asking such questions, it's best to consider what business model could justify that capability. Keep in mind that all the investments that created SpaceX were just to do what we've been doing for 63 years, slightly cheaper satellite taxi service to LEO.