xkcd presents "What If?"

[Bluemage]

The engineering principles behind this were solid enough that in the
1960s, under the guidance of Freeman Dyson, the US government actually
tried to build one of these spaceships. The story of that effort, dubbed
Project Orion, is detailed in the excellent book
of the same name by Freeman’s son George Dyson. Advocates for nuclear
pulse propulsion are still disappointed that the project was cancelled
before any prototypes were built. Others argue that when you think about
what they were trying to do—put our entire nuclear arsenal in a box,
hurl it high into the atmosphere, and nuke it repeatedly—it’s terrifying
that it got as far as it did.

Huh.  Never knew they wanted to actually use an Orion drive in atmosphere.
The concept is actually marginally sane, if you assume it's to be used solely as extra-orbital transportation.  The only real problem then is the old 'what happens if the ship carrying the nukes into orbit does a Challenger' problem, which I've not yet heard a good solution for.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.