It should be reconsidered.
"An Orion mission to Mars was seriously considered. Due to the obvious problems which launching such a mission from the ground, it was decided that an upgraded Saturn V booster would be used to lift it into low earth orbit, but this constrained the diameter of the ship to around 10 meters. Additonal thrust at lift off would have been provided by 4 strap-on boosters, each one with its own F1 engine.
Two launches would be needed to assemble the ship. The travel time to Mars would only have been around 125 days, much quicker than with rockets such as Nerva which would have taken approximately 2 years. During the unpowered 'cruise' portion of the flight, the whole vehicle would have been spun 'end over end' to provide the crew with artificial gravity.
A crew of 6 or 8 would have made the trip, and the ship would have carried a 'Mars Excursion Vehicle' derived from lifting body research to carry the expedition to the surface and back."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
and here:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/orion.htm
I have known that this was proposed for a long time now, and I have always had trouble picturing how it would be effective. A nuclear blast in a vacuum would not be pushing the atmosphere or debris. It would just be the mass of the bomb itself pushing against the shield, which doesn't seem like that much. Or is this some effect like photons pushing a mass?
Very cool stuff! :)
BTW, there was also a similar, (albeit far more ambitious) space project known as Daedalus. That one planned to use fusion reactions to propel the first interstellar probe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus
I read an autobiographical book by Freeman Dyson where he discussed Project Orion. They did some initial tests with normal explosives. IIRC he ultimately came to feel that it was a terrible idea have a vehicle that spread radioactive "pollution" as it travelled, even though this would be in space.
I once had the good fortune to meet Freeman Dyson.
Insert your own Kim Jong Il joke here...
An atomic rocket was tested near Cleveland TX many years ago, probably from the base in LA. 2 women and a boy(Colby)got severe radiation burns but a federal judge hushed it up. Actually the magnetic ring idea for space flight sounded more practical : a superconducting ring about 5mm in cross section and 2-3 km in diameter has a central, offset cabin(thin cables to the ring). Its magnetic field interacts with the solar wind/magnetic field like a sail. Offset it this way and you "mag-sail" outward to mars and beyond, offset it the other way and you drop inward to venus/mercury. Once the su-co current/magnetic dipole is established there is no fuel required, the solar wind is "free". Also the dipole field protects the cabin from charged particles/cosmic rays, sort of a mini-magnetosphere. Sadly enough, NASA didn't show any real interest in the idea, they're all ROCKET SCIENISTS over there, and if it doesn't have BIG BUCKS/FEDERAL PROGRAM written all over it = deep six it...
Heck, how could I _NOT_ ping you?
The nuclear rocket engines developed in the '60's would be more reliable and efficient. And it's starting to look like they're making a comeback.