Any alternatives to the controversial Orion Drive for my Hard SF space opera setting?

What are we even working toward, when it comes to plasma drives? They are never going to be escape velocity capable, are they? This is just for efficient travel in space?

>just

That's a pretty big deal. The rocket equation is a bitch.

Just have shitty modern style thrusters w/ advanced cryogenics my dude. What's the hurry?

>You can't just splash your pusher plate with superheated tungsten and hope that it will consistently propel your craft in a straight line.
The idea is to ride the thermal radiation and plasma, using shaped nuclear charges specifically pointing in the direction of the pusher plate

Even more controversial Nuclear Saltwater Rocket. Read it up.

Replace humanity with more durable machines and groups of ANI's working together.

If you want cheap orbital lift, look into skyhooks for near future and orbital rings for a far one.

Orbital rings are a cool addition to the setting i nany case.

>orbital super structures
>skyhooks
>cheap

Cheaper than rockets once you have even remotely decent payload flow.

They're not cost effective in the slightest, and not even possible with current materials.

People also tend to forget the amount of fuel you need to expend to keep them up there. The ISS is minuscule compared to what you're proposing and costs us around 300 million USD for about 7,000 kg of propellant a year to keep in orbit. And it doesn't have a magical fishing line drifting in the atmosphere below it picking up cargo. Cargo you also have to expend fuel and energy on.

Only with super technology that does not exist, is it barely more efficient then just using a HLV.

A skyhook can be kept up electrodynamically and/or by decelerating payloads from orbit to Earth. And it can be made from UHMWP, according to Boeing's study.

>Real men ride nuclear saltwater rockets.
Open-cycle gas-core nuclear thermal rocket.

Not only is it basically a nuclear explosion, but it's a CONTINUOUS nuclear explosion, being spat out the back of your engine.
The reaction is open to space or atmosphere behind you.

Boeing's studies are just a grab at government funding. Don't kid yourself.

They still have better study cred than you. user.

Good thing NASA's rejected that fantasy too then.

>electrodynamic propulsion
I'm assuming you mean propelling waste from the station itself. I sure as hell hope you don't accelerating it from Earth. Either way, that just turns the station from a pure ICE to a Hybrid. It will still need a fuck ton of fuel to stay in orbit.

>A skyhook can be made of super plastic
And you bought it hook line and sinker.

But not better cred then NASA, who has wholly rejected the idea as being currently impossible and not likely in the future.

It's good to have your head in the clouds, but not if you lose your bearings on reality.

NASA can't even use it's own engines over 50-years-old Russian designs.
So I think it has less to do with feasibility than with funding.

Oars. Rocket-assisted oars.

Seriously, though?
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

Take a gander, salamander.

>NASA can't even use it's own engines over 50-years-old Russian designs.
They use more than just the RD-180. And even then, a large amount of the 180s we use are made in the US.

>I'm assuming you mean propelling waste from the station itself
What about electrodynamic tether propulsion?

For something of that size? A fantasy.

My understanding is that the results of the TSS-1 and TSS-1R experiments were disappointing.

Anything in LEO and you're better off just using conventional methods.

NRL's TiPS only lasted ~10 iirc, and was only 130lbs

Something larger would likely have to be replaced more frequently, especially if it has to contend with the stresses of LEO flight. Waste of money.

LEO stations should only be used as research points, like the IIS or Mir. Not for getting payloads into orbit or even has fuel depots.

>which will become massive ecological disasters if they fail
Even if the ships crash or explode it doesn't mean the bomb will explode and even if the bombs do explode it won't be the end of the world. There have been over 2,000 nuclear explosions in the history of the earth, one or 1,000 more wouldn't be the end of the world. Beyond that nukes have gone missing several times, if you are ignorant of this fact than it just illustrates how minor an issue this is.

No one is expecting critical mass, but no one wants the fuckup potential to be 'we just scattered a bunch of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere at high altitude where its going to get all over the place. Oops. Sorry, all those people we just gave cancer in 40 years. '

>OP pic
It's hilarious how true this is.

Depends on the scale you want.

As said, in-system drives are super important. A hard sci-fi setting, or Real Life, doesn't allow for single craft that do the whole set of liftoff, transfer, land, and re-orbit. You've ~got~ to have in-orbit transfers between specialist vehicles. You can bring your lander with you, of course, as the Apollos did. Or send hem in separate missions to meet up, or for busy routes just have scheduled transfers at stations. And you can land & re-launch with the same vehicle on lots of asteroids, moons, and objects. But you aren't landing your whole vehicle.

And preferably you've designed specialist landing/launching vehicles for each planet, to optimize for gravity and atmosphere.

...

no.

Orion drive for large in-system motherships with LANTR for smaller in-orbit vehicles.

everybody else not in cryo you soon-to-be-metaphorically-marooned-in-time moron

you kind of ignored my entire question, user
once we have a way of getting them up there (dont care how) what's wrong with them?

>Ion drives will work fine, you just need some high-output (anti-matter) reactor to boost them up.
That's pretty fucking wasteful, especially considering that the whole point of ion drives is energy efficiency. If you've got an anti-matter reactor it would be so much easier to use all that power for a thermal rocket. Electric rockets take so much energy per unit of thrust that it's not at all worth it.

Technically it's a hyperthermal nuclear meltdown. The reaction isn't actually reaching critical mass, so it's not a nuclear explosion. But when you've got hypersonic uranium plasma, no one really cares if it's technically a nuclear bomb or not.

>space opera
>no FTL
Pick one. Genres have definitions.

Wait, what? SO stems from fucking planetary romance. You just needed to go to Venus before scientists spoiled all the fun of what was beyond those clouds.

I like to think this nails it:

The ideal space opera, as described by Brian Aldiss, contains most if not all of the following criteria:

1. The world must be in peril.
2. There must be a quest,
3. And a man or woman to meet the mighty hour.
4. That man or woman must confront aliens and exotic creatures.
5. Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher.
6. Blood must rain down the palace steps,
7. And ships launch out into the louring dark.
8. There must be a woman or man fairer than the skies,
9. And a villain darker than a Black Hole.
10. And all must come right in the end.

Honestly I can it see perfectly well in a neo-future solar system (think Cowboy Bebop with feudalism), though I guess you'd need mutants and ships would take their months.