Outward Bound by wblack
Close
Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.
Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.
Description
Outward Bound
A Callisto Crew Vehicle Departs for Jupiter.
This is an on-going series -- previous posts are linked below.
Freeman Dyson describes Orion:
The bombs are ejected, passing through an aperture in the center of the pusher-plate: In space, without an atmosphere to produce a fireball, when the bomb detonates, you get about a millisecond of intense white light.
“When the nuclear device is exploded, the channel filler absorbs radiation emitted and rises to a high temperature. The radiation case serves to contain the energy released by the explosion so that more energy is absorbed by the channel filler. The high pressure achieved in the heated channel filler then drives a strong shock into the propellant, which vaporizes the propellant and drives it toward the pusher-plate.”
“The expansion of the bomb and the subsequent compression of the tungsten pancake take a few millionths of a second. During this time, the channel filler and the propellant absorb neutrons and X-rays emitted by the bomb. This reduces the shielding required to protect the Orion crew, and transforms much of the bombs output into kinetic energy that can be intercepted by the pusher-plate and used to propel the ship.
The propellant slab, after being compressed to about one-quarter of its original thickness, expands as a jet of plasma, moving at some 150 km/sec (300,000 mph) toward the ship. It takes 300 microseconds to complete the trip. During this time the propellant cools to about 10,000 degrees. Within another few hundred milliseconds the propellant cloud hits the pusher plate (or the advancing front of the reflected shockwave produced by the initial collision) and is suddenly recompressed. For less than a millisecond the stagnating propellant reaches a temperature of between 100,000 and 120,000 degrees – about ten times the temperature of the visible surface of the sun, as all of the kinetic energy is converted into heat.”
From Project Orion, the true story of the atomic spaceship
George Dyson, Henry Holt, 2002
All models are my own. Models constructed in Bryce 6.5 and rendered in Bryce 7 Pro.
As always thank you for your interest, thoughtful comments, and encouragement.
Comments (9)
wblack
Mars Colony Terraforming Program Image Links: Mars Colony: The Expanding Frontier Discarding Stages Discarding Stages: A New Perspective Prospecting Callisto Callisto Production Field Flight Control Station Command & Control Deck Crew Quarters Mars Colony Heavy Lift Nuclear SSTO Mars Colony Nuclear SSTO Launch Mars Colony Nuclear SSTO Approach to Touchdown Nuclear SSTO Orbital Operations Nuclear SSTO Diagram Mars Terraforming Program Orion Launch Site Callisto Orbital Loading Operation Dusk Orbit: Mission Support Transporter Unloading Mars Terraforming Program Vehicle Class Chart Mars Terraforming: The Growth of Industry Orion Impulse Launcher Assembly
peedy
Another fantastic model! Great lighting. Corrie
texboy
fine work, bud.... it's cold out there....
dcmstarships
You have done a tremendous job with this project!
flavia49
marvelous image
geirla
Great view and description!
Bambam131
impressive modeling as always Williams, the stark dark background with just stars really gives the impression of just how immense our solar system is and the great distances between the planets. A very real look at what could be, excellent my friend!!! Cheers, David
WZRD
Great modeling and a fascinating write-up make this a classic sci fi picture. My only disappointment is the lighting - the shadows on the ship (around what I assume are shock absorbers) indicate at least three light sources which are not visible begging the question; where does this light come from? Deep space pics like this are always a challenge due to the difficulties involved in lighting the subject convincingly but still allowing all that modeling work to be seen! Hope this helps and keep them coming - regular hard sci-fi pictures are a real treat.
wblack
WZRD The lighting rig I’ve created serves my purpose. I am the final judge in this matter. Your attempts at “critique” make numerous assumptions and (more than a few) rather sketchy equivocations, and I need not attempt to illuminate your inability to comprehend this again after exhaustively pointing these out previously, simply rest assured, these are purely, and transparently, at this point, a matter of your contrivance. There is nothing you can teach me, in regards to lighting – and when you guess (in regards to my purpose) you miss the mark. You fail even more miserably in this case -- You cannot meaningfully critique anything when your comments do not address what is present in the image, and in this case (in your rush to condescend) you over look even the disambiguating text description supplied – which, had you read it, may have saved you from this gaff. In space, without an atmosphere to produce a fireball, when the bomb detonates, you get about a millisecond of intense white light. There are two light sources in the image, sunlight coming from the lower right quadrant of the image – and the millisecond flash from a 10.5 kiloton nuclear impulse charge shown in the upper left corner of the image. The lesson you should learn here is: Look before you leap.