Rating: 
Summary: An unsatisfying book on early space-age optimism & politics
Review: The Orion Project, a 4000-ton spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs, was initiated by a small team of young scientists, most of them fresh from the largest scientific effort in history: the Manhattan project. For people accustomed to large-scale engineering and atmospheric nuclear explosions, the Orion was not science-fiction. It was supposed to fly to Saturn by 1970 with them on board. Plagued by politics, Orion was shut down a few years after it started. With this book, George Dyson mainly explores the childish optimism that characterized the early space age and the complicated political forces that destroyed it. Unfortunately, the book does not really detail the technology behind Orion, most of it being classified to this day. Roughly organized chronologically, the text lacks structure, continuously bringing new names and facts, but without giving any clear idea to where it is going. The reader is dragged from one cryptically titled chapter to another, trying to filter out the useful information from the useless biographical details or quotes. Obviously faced with a lack of technical information, the author still manages, from time to time, to inspire us with the vision of a massive ship, taking off in the middle of the desert on a trail of nuclear explosions, heading to Enceladus... or frightens us with the vision of a 15-cm nuclear bomb (using 1960 technology). Besides the bombs, the book also explains the other technological hurdles: pusher plate, heat and ablation, bomb ejection, shock absorbers, radiation and fallout. There are also a few drawings of the evolving Orion design and pictures of the small-scale, explosive-based tests. The author also describes somewhat successfully the intricate and uninspired politics that ruled the space program at this time, as opposed to the optimism and enthusiasm of the young men behind it... but always reminding you that the same technology and enthusiasm created the bomb in the first place. If this book is not really a pleasure to read, the main subject is fascinating and is worth reading for any space enthusiast, but is probably not good enough for the casual reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Orion
Review: This engrossing account details the Cold War effort by young Manhattan Project veterans to design and fly an ocean liner-sized spaceship driven by atomic bombs that was to reach Mars and Saturn by the early 1970s. Dyson, son of physicist Freeman Dyson, relays the fifties-style Space Age optimism of the undertaking, and mirrors his account of militaristic bureaucracy vs. benign research with an insider's portrait of the now-aging participants. A-bomb designer Ted Taylor, admitting he may have helped set loose a Pandora's Box of nuclear ills, nonetheless considers Orion to represent the last spirit in that myth-the one political circumstances have yet to set free. Although this is an entirely factual eulogy (Orion required tiny, terrorist-sized nuclear weapons; likewise any spaceport it launched from would, by definition, be subject to a nuclear attack), it may also be the best science fiction novel of the year, and-like much science fiction-may yet come true.
Rating:
Summary: Poor book saved by amazing subject
Review: What was/is amazing about the Orion project is the fact that as far as we can tell it would have worked. By worked, I mean it would have made our current space shuttle and space station projects look like covered wagons in the age of autos. If history had taken just a slightly different direction, we could have had several building size bases on the moon by the early seventies, probably sent manned expeditions to Mars and even beyond by the 80's. But this book is not a great treatment of the subject. There is a lot of technical discussion but little organization. Characters come and go, various memos are written, and people write techical papers on building two story high shock asorbers. All well and good but what is missing is the real story and a unifying analysis of the project to propel a spaceship by riding atomic detonations. The author has done a valuable service by bringing this fascination program to our attention. In addition, it is very clear that chemical rockets have serious limitations. Mankind is unlikely to make much movement away from the earth without a revitalized Project Orion.
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