What is it you do?

One of the biggest obstacles for project Orion is getting around the international treaties and space laws regarding nuclear material in space. RTG energy sources in interplanetary probes just about get past these laws, but there’s always some people complaining about the risk even for those.

Orion combines high specific impulse with high thrust, and actually works better the bigger it is. That turns just about every convention in rocketry on its head, and to an advantage. And there’s something unequivocally awesome about the idea of riding thermonuclear explosions.

I wander if inertial confinement fusion could be used as a primer for setting off a larger thermonuclear explosion instead of a fission primer. Maybe the Orion throws the charge out it’s back that has laser receivers. When the charge is in position, it gets lasered by the ship. Internal optics compress a fusion fuel pellet, which ignites a larger fusion reaction. That means no radioactive debris, and you’re clear to launch from the earth’s surface (also keeps the nonproliferation weenies off your back). I also have the idea that if you were to replace the mechanical spring/damper system by an essentially gigantic linear electric motor, you can not only more finely control your acceleration, but also convert some of the energy from propulsion into electricity to run the ship’s systems and shoot high power lasers at propulsion charges.

Then we can transport like the poorest 6.4 billion of the earth’s denizens to the moon, Mars, and asteroid colonies, and turn the earth into a gigantic playground for the remaining 100 milllion just like the environmentalists want in their secret dreams (except without having to get rid of billions of people)

One of the great things about huge ships that can withstand nuclear explosions is that they can carry sufficient shielding for humans to stay in space for decades, long enough for an interstellar mission.

Eventually we could either build a really big one, or maybe convert an asteroid into one and send it to another star. It could be an arc, though I think by then we’ll have suspended animation, or hybernation, or something. It would probably be a one way trip to a rich star system that we discovered with a gigantic space telescope that we could build because Orion ships gave us the ability to put million ton objects into earth orbit and beyond.

One of the points is that those who went were the winners, those who did not go (china)
and those who were visited (natives) were the losers.

Pollution – primarily air pollution needs to be solved with non-fossil fuel power sources.
this effort will require many trillions of dollars to overhaul the world energy
infrastructure. Steps in the multi-billion range can tweak the problem with better
filters and devices to reduce the pollution. Not correlated to whether space colonization
is or is not successful. Although if space colonization was happening on a large nuclear
Orion type scale then one super-Orion could transport 100,000 people of Deerborn, michigan
and decades of supplies and their factories etc… to the moon or Mars.

Overfishing- Over half of the worlds fish is from domestic fish farms (mainly in China).
The world is shifting from “wild fishing” to domesticated fish farming. Fish farming
should be made more healthy for the eaters and sustainable for the location of
the farming but it can be scaled up (doubled) to handle all fish needs.

Deforestation – Fossil fuels (like coal mining) has contributed to this problem. But
again managed forests are being grown so that the wild habitat can be left alone.
Again large scale space colonization can reduce the impact on the earth environment.
10,000-30,000 jetliners (100-500 passengers) move over 100 million people and a lot
of their cargo every year. that is the scale for a serious colonization effort that
over a few decades could allow Mars to help reduce the load on earth.
Also, moderately advanced technology can allow 20-50 billion people to live on earth
with a lifestyle in excess of the american lifestyle while not overloading the
biosphere.

Climate change – Mass produced nuclear power can stop the release of the gases.
Geo-engineering can be used to control earth climate.
the US built 8-12 reactors per year in the early 70s from almost none in the
fifties and sixties. A coal reactor is about the same size as a nuclear reactor and
more than one coal reactor is built each week.
Molten salt reactors can burn 99% of the thorium, uranium, plutonium which would
leave only 30 year half life or less material. Uranium hydride reactors could
be mass produced starting in 2012. MIT/Westinghouse are working on annular fuel
which could provide a 50% power uprate to existing reactors (thus US nuclear power
would go from supplying 20% of electricity to 30% even without new reactors).
Again whether the correct choices are made here or not is independent on whether
there is a working and successful space program.

Currently 40-60 billion/year is spent worldwide on a what are called a space programs
(private and public -nasa, military and other nations).
If that money is spent on a plans that could actually work how does that effect our
ability to solve or not solve multi-trillion problems ?

There are no natives on Mars or the Moon or the asteroids.
So going there and taking over this time will not hurt anyone.

Multi-trillion dollar energy and environmental issues vs $40-60 billion on space.
Let us grab every billion that we can to suck it into the multi-trillions that
are not working because those extra billions are going to put us over the top.

Your lessons are wrong and your correlations are wrong. There are 6.5 billion people. We
can and should work on multiple projects independently. Going all in on single
solutions is betting too much on one thing being the right choice and
it means ignoring other development paths which should be moved forward at the same time.

Back in Columbus’s days te world population was below 500 million (and the diseases the Europeans brought decimated the Native American population across the whole continent: that’s how wrong they got it. Besides, us enlighted Europeans also decimated the Australian Aborigines, and made slave trade a world-wide phenomenon. But that’s a good price to pay for world domination of Europeans [or their descendants], just ask the surviving Native Americans, Aborigines, or Africans).

Right now we’re talking about a severely overpopulated planet which is creaking in its hinges through pollution, overfishing, deforestation, climate change and what-have-you (I think this very site sometimes touches on these topics, I believe).

So indeed, why grow up before going out? It is our born right to do severely stupid things, exactly like the European colonists did before us.

Why learn from the past? Get Uranium, Plutonium and Thorium from anywhere you can get it and export our current problems across the solar system.

Or do you imply that we will learn along the way? The only time that happened was when it was already too late: just ask the original inhabitants of the Americas and Australia. Or look at Africa.

Yeah, learning along the way is the way to go!

Do we get things right before we leave our parents home or before we get a first job ? No.

We have to go out and muddle through.

Nuclear. 3.5 billion tons of Uranium in the Ocean. More in the crust. Larger amounts of thorium as well. Using molten salt reactors for 99% burning of actinides (the uranium and plutonium), there is enough for millions of years. Plenty of issues between now and then, plus more thorium and uranium on the moon and in the asteroids.