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Product Description
Product Description
The race to the moon dominated space flight during the the 1960s yet, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US Government sponsored a project that could possibly have sent 150 people on expeditions to Mars or Saturn. The project was code-named "Orion" and centred upon the effort to develop a fast, manoeuvrable, nuclear-powered space vehicle for long-range voyages in space. The proposed 4000-ton spaceship would be propelled by nuclear bombs but, strictly classified, the project was never given a chance to succeed or fail - due partly to its apparent absurdity - but its mix of sublime physics, madcap engineering, and a cast of Cold War warriors and would-be inter-galactic engineers made the mission a tantalising "what if" story. In this book George Dyson, son of physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the original project team, pieces together the story his father could only tell him in fragments at the time.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
The life of this US military research program on nuclear propulsion rockets is well documented in this book. The author is the son of the physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the main guys involed in the project. The book has clearly been a labour of love for the author, containing many interviews with his father's former colleagues and carefully referencing many of the their research papers.
My criticism of the book lies with the editing. The structure of the book is not very logical for the reader. As a historical account, it is certainly not chronological. It jumps around, following the topics as brought up by the interviewed scientists. So there's a lot of repitition of the core material and the book could have been shorter. Also, the 'techie' language remains in the book in all its glory. Some of it is eloquent, some quite crude.
But I forgive the book for all this. It's not a text book on the subject, nor yet another diluted popular science book. Instead it's scientists reminiscing about their lost work on an ambitious space exploration project which was terminated before its dreams could be realised.
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