By Frankie Clifford Julius Doelle Ben Morgan

 There are two main ways to travel through space using nuclear power  Use of thermal nuclear rocketry  Nuclear Pulse Propulsion

 Thermal nuclear power is the method of providing power and propulsion to the ship with the us e of an onboard nuclear reactor.  One proposed way of space travel using this method is known as Project Daedalus. Supposedly, with enough matter, a ship could use nuclear energy to travel for extremely long and extended periods of time.

 Other methods that make use of an onboard reactor include:  Nuclear electric rockets.  Nuclear salt water rockets.  Nuclear photonic rockets.  Antimatter nuclear rockets.

 Nuclear Pulse Propulsion is the method of detonating a nuclear bomb behind a ship (at a safe distance, of course) and using the resulting shock waves, or pulses, to accelerate.  Using this method, and coupling it with enough bombs, a ship could be accelerated near the speed of light.

 Originally, this method would have been used to get off the ground. However, quite a few bombs would have to be used to escape Earth’s gravitational pull. The environmental effects would be catastrophic.  The project was later called Project Orion and has now been adopted specifically for traveling in deep space.  The project, while not under development, has been supported by several physicist such as Feynman and Dyson.

 Another nuclear pulse propulsion design is the Medusa design pictured on the previous slide.  The design would incorporate a ‘sail’ or a massive bowl shaped design near the front of the ship. A bomb would be detonated between the ‘sail’ and the capsule where the crew or any instruments would be.  The ‘sail’ would catch the majority of the blast and the ship would be propelled forward.