Project Orion was the first engineering design for a spacecraft powered by nuclear pulse propulsion, led by a team at General Atomics in the 1950s. The design appeared to offer capabilities well in excess of even the most advanced conventional or nuclear rocket engines then under study, making “routine” interplanetary travel a possibility.

An Orion drive makes full use of nuclear power because it does not attempt to confine a nuclear reaction. It is powered by directional nuclear explosives. The nuclear shock wave pushes on a thick steel pusher-plate. Oil is sprayed on the pusher plate before each explosion to prevent ablation of the pusher plate. Large shock absorbers convert the impulse from the pusher plate into a smoother thrust.

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