Orion not Phoenix (was "Crumbles when soft")

> >As for propulsion, I was thinking of good old bo-bo-bo-bo-booom nuclear
> >propulsion, Phoenix style,
>
> Oh, now I see. Hope your bombs would not blast the cycler craft apart.
> But I dont see that in the first starting phase were the inertia
> holds the craft back while it gets all of the bombs blasting waves .
>

Sorry, my fault, the project name was actually Orion, not Phoenix, I've mix
it up! Anyway the people who worked on Orion didn't thought that was a
problem lifting off from Earth, so it shouldn't be an issue in 1/6 moon
gravity... the ship would have a rather massive dumped shield to absorb the
shockwaves, and turn the push into thrust. IIRC correctly the only real
issue there was with the concept was the fallout in the atmosphere caused by
the several hundreds micro nuclear explosion needed to lift off from Earth,
but that won't be an issue on the moon.
There is some info on Orion at
http://www.angelfire.com/stars2/projectorion/
and you can see a picture of the '60 Test Vehicle at
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/RM-ORION.htm

Concept is sound and considered feasible by the scientist who review it
nearly half a century ago, so it should be well within today's technology
reach. Once again the real issues are political, not technological,
manufacturing thousands of micro nuclear bombs in these days doesn't seem
any less destabilizing than it was during the cold war unfortunately, and
the chances that a project of this type would be resurrected in the near
future are probably nil. Nevertheless, we were talking in abstract on what
would be the best way to do it, not if politics would allow it, and as far
as I know Orion is by far the best propulsion system ever considered... :)

Cheers,

Claudio