Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

Project Orion was a groundbreaking program initiated during the late 1950s and early 1960s that sought to develop a spacecraft propulsion system powered by nuclear explosions. The concept was proposed by physicist Freeman Dyson and his colleagues, and it aimed to leverage the energy released from controlled nuclear detonations to propel a spacecraft, potentially offering a means of achieving high speeds for interplanetary travel. The fundamental idea behind Project Orion involved detonating a series of small nuclear bombs behind a spacecraft.