It was announced today that Lockheed won the bid to build the technology to for the future of manned space travel. They’re calling it Orion which is coincidentally also the name of a project to develop inter planetary space craft in the early 60’s. The interesting thing about the original Orion is that its proposed propulsion was to drop nuclear explosives out the back of the ship. The explosions would propel the ship forward.

On paper this old design is amazing. It could travel from the Earth’s surface to Mars and back in 4 weeks compared to 12 months for chemical rockets. There is also almost no limit to the amount of material you could bring. The Orion ships could be massive which would prevent all the current stress over what to bring and what to leave behind.

The obvious catch was that the fallout of Orion taking off would kill 1-10 people. You got to break a few eggs though ;). The project was cancelled when the Partial Test Ban Treaty passed and made testing of nuclear devises in the atmosphere (and in space) illegal.

I hope Lockheed’s Orion is as cool. Doubt it though.