The Dodecahedron

Ever since I first watch Episode 7 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos called "The Backbone Of The Night" years ago, I was inspired to use the Dodecahedron as the symbol of Project Orion Renaissance and of the D-He3 Project Orion Starship since the Pythagorean kept the dodecahedron secret from common people which made the eventual Dark Ages possible.  The dodecahedron is a three-dimensional pentagon and this polyhedron has twelve pentagon-shaped sides.  Another reason for my adoption of the dodecahedron as my symbol is the dodecahedron being a symbol inscribed on a "Starship Theodorus Of The Planet Earth" Bussard Ramjet from Episode 8 "Travels In Space And Time" of Cosmos.  So the symbol on an Orion Starship will be the dodecahedron.  The original plan for Orion could not really go to the stars since it was too inefficient and could go no more then 1-2% the speed of light.  The D-He3 Orion which I am designing on the other hand can go at least 10% the speed of light and be ideal for travel to nearby stars.  Now you know exactly why I picked the dodecahedron as the symbol of Project Orion Renaissance.

dodecahedron

This may sound a bit off topic, but I forgot to also mention the Mini Mag Orion which too is more efficient than the original Orion model and the D-He3 Orion borrowed form the Mini Mag Orion its magsail for deceleration.

Mini Mag Orion Spacecraft Design

FINALLY, the "Orion Crisis" is OVER!

Hello, this is Timothy McHugh and I am pleased to report that precisely 170 months after starting to the day, the Orion Crisis of Project Orion against X-Wings is finally over.  Before the Orion Crisis starting on Monday, August 17, 1998, I was using Project Orion to be who I am in the midst of many people who love Star Wars by pairing it up with the X-Wings in my mind in the ill-fated Orion Unity I.  My goal in the Orion Crisis was to have what I like and to be different in the midst of rampant Star Wars fandom.  The Orion Crisis started on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25, 1998 when I got a Star Wars video game called Rogue Squadron without asking for it and me not telling the truth about my feelings about it.  Plus the massive delay rather than solving this problem in 1999 was because my foster parents and a psychiatrist took away my Orion and some of my other security items at the time in an attempt to make me like Star Wars and I did not tell the truth about my true goals regarding Star Wars.  I did not speak my mind when my Orion was taken away in that I did not state that I want nothing more to do with Star Wars and that I wanted to have my Orion back while disliking Star Wars at the same time.  Another thing that I lied about was my feelings regarding the hostile treatment of Colo Claw Fish in the TPM underwater scene when that movie first came out in theaters.  The taking away of my Orion and my not speaking my mind about Star Wars when my Orion was taken away caused me a huge psychological mess that interfered with school and created unwanted obsessions for me that took me many years to undo.  I changed Project Orion's propulsion after the reality of it being shut down in 1965 due to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty finally sank in on February 18, 1999.

The underlying motivation for my goals in the Orion Crisis was having my toy airplanes taken away and my balloons popped by an abusive Filipino woman who ran a group home that I lived at for nine months form 1989 until May 25, 1990.  This is what Star Wars subconsciously reminded me of ever since I first rode Star Tours at Disneyland without first hearing of Star Wars in October 1990.  Although the scars form having my stuff taken away in an abusive group home and having my Orion taken away for 20 weeks solid have healed, I still need to avoid Star Wars because some of its vocal and avid fans give things that I like a bad name and this "Darth Tiberius" concept for Star Wars Episode VII.  People like Michael Wong and his StarDestroyer.Net vilify Star Trek heroes such as saying that the Federation is communist, racist, or evil and accuse Star Trek of promoting racism or communism.  My concern about the "Darth Tiberius" character in the proposed Star Wars Episode VII which William Shatner may play is that by his name he is named for the middle name of a famous Star Trek hero and that it might be an attempt to vilify Star Trek for the first time in an actual Star Wars movie.  So don't tell me that I have to like Star Wars in any way, shape, or form or else I will instantly block you if I can and remove your comments.

The Orion Crisis after many years of delay finally ends on Monday, February 25, 2013 and February 25 is officially "Orion Victory Day" (OVD).  The D-He3 Orion Starship's days of dealing with Star Wars are over and the only Star Wars-related thing I will do from now on with my refit Orion is befriend Colo Claw Fish in my mind for a new and stable long-lasting Orion Unity.  Actually, August 17 is Project Orion's second birthday or rebirthday because that is when I really got hooked on Project Orion in 1998, 185 days before the fusion refit was conceived.  The lesson that I learned form this 170-month-long Orion Crisis is to tell the truth about your feelings on something, even if you are afraid to do so.  This is a long story that no one post or blog can talk about so easily but I will write something on the whole history behind it.

The original Orion Unity was between Project Orion and X-Wing Starfighters as an attempt to feel included while being different and tragically ended 55 days before the Orion refit came out in my mind.  The current Orion Unity of my refitted D-He3 fusion pulse Project Orion and the sexy Star Wars eel known as Colo Claw Fish is called Orion Unity II and this one is stable and will not fail like the previous Orion Unity did on Christmas 1998.  That is because unlike the X-Wings, Colo Claw Fish never embody any type of foreboding in me or bring up any bad memories for me.

Orion Unity II

Project Orion Renaissance Inspirational Quote

Here is an inspiration quote that I adopted form a webpage on Project Daedalus for Project Orion as a D-He3 interstellar spacecraft:

"Then through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night." - Edward Lear

Confused Matthew's real face

Hello, this is Timothy McHugh and I recently stumbled across a video showing Confused Matthew's real face, not his avatar which he uses for himself in his reviews etc.  This man is responsible for starting a YouTube war against The Lion King with his unintelligible review of the film in 2008.  There have been several commentaries on his TLK review which I enjoy.  This guy is planning to make a second review of The Lion King containing all of the same invalid claims and same logical fallacies where he will move the goalposts on legitimate counter arguments claiming to "address common objections to his original review".  And when he does, I will be ready to shoot him down and kick is ass into another dimension with an Orion Commentary!  Confused Matthew is sick and here is an image that I have saved onto my computer of what this mastermind of a smear campaign against The Lion King looks like in real life which looks very different form his avatar below an actual image of myself.

This is me

Confused Matthew

Confused Matthew, I am so furious at you for refusing to give up your prejudices about The Lion King when they have been refuted many times before and for vowing to cling to them and defend them at all costs no matter what the evidence says!  He refuses to learn about character and plot development which prove him completely wrong about The Lion King and takes anyone who shoots him down or likes The Lion King as an idiot.  Confused Matthew is banned form any Project Orion Renaissance activities because he bases his opinion about The Lion King on PURE PREJUDICE. These absurd prejudices of his in turn compel him to promote atrocities in sick fantasies like his threats to beat up and kill Simba for his character.  This a form of destroying for no good reason and therefore it goes against everything upon which Project Orion Renaissance is founded on.  Everyone who endorses absurdities that even foster fantasies that glorify destroying things that one dislikes for no good reason are forever banned from Project Orion Renaissance unless they change their ways and give up the absurdities causing their violent animosities.

The Keyhole Nebula rightfully flips off Confused Matthew to give him the "finger" that he so desperately deserves!

Why I dislike Star Wars

Hello; this is Timothy McHugh, I am a space enthusiast who dislikes Star Wars due to bad memories, forebodings, and psychological trauma that I suffered in its name.  I have written a full critique on of of Michael Wong's "Star Wars VS Star Trek Essays" in which he flagrantly and accuses Star Trek of promoting racism even though it is well documented and 100% OBVIOUS that Gene Roddenberry whom founded Star Wars was vehemently against racism which makes him either a deluded fool or a big fat liar.  I quoted and refuted the entire retarded "Racism in Star Wars and Star Trek" essay of his on a page of my official website.  Plus I wrote another page to which my aforementioned dissection of that StarDestroyer.Net essay is a parent page to on exactly Why I Don't Like Star Wars which you can read for more information.  I burn my psychological scars that I suffered from my psychological trauma in 1999 very deep to this day.  In 1999, my foster parents and a psychiatrist took away my Orion model in an attempt to make me like Star Wars and I made the mistake of not honestly speaking my mind, that was the trauma I suffered in 1999 to which I still burn all of the scars from it very deep and you can read more about it on the second link in this post.  Sadly, I sometimes receive hate mail from fans of Star Wars who are intolerant of the fact that I honestly don't like something that they like and any such intolerant Star Wars fans will be blocked from this blog and they can kiss their hate mail goodbye!

I receive lots of this flak form some Starwoids for stating that I honestly dislike Star Wars on the Internet!

That's right, I don't like Star Wars.

The Keyhole Nebula flips off the Star Wars universe to give Star Wars the "finger"!

My Brand New Official Website

Hello, this is Timothy McHugh, and I have some good news, I have now completed my very own official website for Project Orion Renaissance.  I spent the past few or several days putting up this awesome site and it is completed but will be subject to updates when new information comes in that is relevant to the site.  Please go check it out, I strongly recommend it!

Alien Life

Previously I talked about three possible interstellar destinations for Project Orion and in this post I will bring up speculation about possible alien life and what it might look like.

First I will star with a Star Wars fish called a Colo Claw Fish which has the possibility of inhabiting a planet around a nearby star system such as Alpha Centauri and Tau Ceti instead of in a galaxy far far away.  Tau Ceti E and F are two possible places for Colo Claw Fish to live but we still have yet to find any planets in the habitable zone around either Alpha Centauri A or B.

One of my favorites is featured in the conclusion of Episode 2/Chapter II of Carl Sagan's Cosmos called "One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue".  In 1976 Carl Sagan and a colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter made some calculations and came up with the possibility of the Jupiter "Floaters" and "Hunters" which Adolf Schaller painted and there has been subsequent art of the floaters and hunters by other people myself included.

Adolf Schaller's first painting of possible gas giant atmospheric life

Close-ups of Jupiter Floaters

Sagan and Salpeter's speculation stated with very little life forms called "Sinkers" that would have to reproduce before they are fired and hope that the turbulence will carry some of their offspring to the higher cooler regions.  They the two made calculations about some of the other forms of life that might inhabit a gas giant's atmosphere.  Jupiter Floaters are vast living balloons kilometers across, enormously larger than any Sando Aqua Monster, beings the size of cities.  Floaters are imagined in great herds for as far as the eye can see with camouflage patterns on their skin.  There are also other creatures to inhabit such a world, smaller, faster, and more maneuverable hunters.  The hunters eat the floaters both for their organic molecules and their store of hydrogen and there cannot be very many hunters because they would die off if they eat all the floaters.  Hollow sinkers would evolve into the first floaters and self-propelled floaters would evolve into the first hunters.  Physics and chemistry permits such life forms and art gives them a certain look but nature does not have to follow our speculations.  below is another speculative guess about atmospheric gas giant life which Adolf Schaller also drew.

This post has been a preview about possible alien life.

Possible interstellar destination for Project Orion

Previously, I talked about Projects Daedalus and Icarus from which Orion borrows from for its rebirth.  This time I will talk about possible target star systems for an Orion interstellar mission and will focus on nearby stars.  Plus today is the 540th birthday of the Polish cleric/astronomer known as  Nicholas Copernicus who started what would be known as the Copernican Revolution.   Copernicus made the daring proposition that the Earth was one of the planets and that it orbited the sun and that is what really launched the Copernican Revolution.  Finding a habitable planet around another star similar to Earth is the holy grail to astronomy and the pinocle of the Copernican Revolution.  it is only appropriate to write this particular post about possible destinations for the refit Orion Starship on the birthday of the man who started the revolution that leads to discovery of planets around other stars in his honor.

Nicholas Copernicus (February 19, 1473-May 24, 1543)

The most likely destination for Project Orion is Alpha Centauri (a.k.a. Rigel Kentaurus, Rigel Kent, Toliman, or Bungula) which is only 4.37 light-years away and the nearest star system to us.  There is hope that there are Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around either of the two stars.  So far; only one planet has been detected in the Alpha Centauri star system, Alpha Centauri Bb.  Unfortunately, Alpha Centauri Bb too close to its star; Alpha Centauri B, to support life.  Hopefully there will be discoveries in the near future of earth-like planets orbiting in the habitable zone of either Alpha Centauri A or B.

Another candidate for an Orion mission is Epsilon Eridani which is 10.5 light-years away and has a few gas giants orbiting it.  Epsilon Eridani B is a gas giant in a highly elliptical orbit which at closest approach is still farther out form its star than the habitable zone of that star is.  There is possibility of Titan-like moons around Epsilon Eridani B with the molecules of life.  To be frank Epsilon Eridani is only 800 million years old and is too young to harbor any intelligent or complex life and life there at best is primitive.

Another option is Tau Ceti 11.9 light-years away.  Tau Ceti (a.k.a. Durre Menthor), like Alpha Centauri, is yet another candidate for complex life and intelligent life.  There is now possibility of a few planets orbiting Tau Ceti as I read recently on the Tau Zero Foundation's Centauri Dreams.  According to the linked Centauri Dreams Article on five planet candidates around tau Ceti, one of the candidates is in the habitable zone.  In fact Tau Ceti e and f both orbit within the star's habitable zone if they exist.

Who knows what life we may find on the planets of the nearby stars.  In the next post I will talk about scientific speculations of what alien life might look like with a Star Wars eel as a possibility of life around the nearby stars instead of in a galaxy far, far away.

Icarus and Daedalus

Previously I talked about the original state of Project Orion and its first life as an attempt to develop an atomic bomb-propelled spacecraft.  Now I will talk about later so-called "post-Orion" theoretical studies in nuclear pulse propulsion from which lay the groundwork for the new propulsion system for Project Orion.  Starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers started banning the bomb from nuclear pulse propulsion studies.

One famous study was a five-year study done by the British Interplanetary Society in the 1970s called Project Daedalus.  Daedalus was a concept for an interstellar probe flyby mission to Barnard's Star.  The 190m long and about 175m wide Daedalus spacecraft was designed to be two stages and to accelerate a 450 tonne payload to 12% of the speed of light.  Daedalus was the first concept designed to utilize deuterium-helium3 fusion and was planned to have its helium3 mined from the atmosphere of Jupiter.  A Daedalus spacecraft would have a total departure mass of 54,000 tonnes counting 50,000 tonnes of propellent alone with only 4,000 tonnes of dry mass and that includes the 450 tonne payload.  Daedalus would not decelerate to the destination and instead fly by it at 12%c.  Plus there would be dispatch probes stored in the top of the payload bay just beneath the erosion shied and and astronomy deck with telescopes right below.  Daedalus is too massive for humanity's first interstellar spacecraft and that is where a Project Icarus and Project Orion will later come in.  Orion borrows its second primary propulsion system, dispatch probes, and astronomy deck all from Project Daedalus even before Icarus was started.  Below is a blueprint of Daedalus drawn by Rick Sternbeck and and computer generated model of the Daedalus spacecraft.

Project Icarus is a current five-year joint study between the aforementioned British Interplanetary Society and the Tau Zero Foundation and starts from where Daedalus left off.  Unlike Daedalus, Icarus is designed to decelerate to its target star system to explore it in far more detail than its predecessor.  Icarus will also have a secondary propulsion system such as a light sail or a magsail for deceleration to save propellent and make it less massive than Daedalus.  Icarus my even use antimatter to assist in its D-He3 fusion.  Also unlike Daedalus, Icarus will not have its helium3 mined from Jupiter and instead it will be mind elsewhere in our solar system such as on Uranus.  Icarus Started on September 30, 2009 and will conclude in 2014.  Below are three computer generated illustrations of three designs for Project Icarus.

Even before Icarus, I considered using a secondary propulsion system for Orion such as a magsail to decelerate to its destination and to make it less massive than Daedalus.  In light of Icarus, Orion may even use a little antimatter for an anti-matter assisted D-He3 fusion pulse propulsion system in its return.

So I will discuss the possible interstellar destinations for Project Orion in the future under its refit of a Daedalus/Icarus-style propulsion system.

Project Orion as it was at first

Let me tell you something about Project Orion for the seven years that it first lasted from 1958 until 1965.  As I mentioned in the previous post which is the first post on this blog, Orion was originally designed to utilize a succession of nuclear explosion behind a pusher plate.

In 1958, General Atomic in my hometown of San Diego started development of a spacecraft to explore our entire solar system and even the nearby stars.  it is from the ultimate objective of going to the stars that they got the name Orion after the famous constellation of a man in the sky called Orion the Hunter.  The motto at the time was "Saturn by 1970".  Orion was kept top secret at the time of its first life because of its intended use of nuclear explosives as a propulsion and fuel.  Theodore Taylor was the original head of Project Orion and another key participant was a physicist Freeman Dyson.  In its first life and to this day, no actual spacecraft has ever emerged from Project Orion yet, but there were several small unmanned flight test vehicles many of which were damaged and destroyed.  But in late 1959, the first successful test of one of those flight test vehicles took place and was followed by another flight test shortly after in celebration.  This successful flight test vehicle was named "Putt-putt" or "Hot Rod".  All of the flight test vehicles used chemical explosives.  In 1960 Project Orion began to lose momentum and support in Congress and the United States government.  And there was competition from chemical and conventional nuclear rockets.  A video of Project Orion was shown to Werner Von Braun but it was too little too late since NASA likes to be as open as possible and Orion at the time was too secretive.  A bigger problem than just the secrecy was the radiation that would have resulted from the nuclear weapons explosions propelling the spacecraft.  In 1963, John F Kennedy wrote the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which was signed by the Untied States, Great Britain, and Soviet Russia. The 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty forbids nuclear weapons explosions in space and thus sealed Orion's fate.  Project Orion eventually died in 1965 as a result of this treaty.  Freeman Dyson said that this was the first time in history when such advancements in technology have been suppressed for political reasons and he was right.

There were several spacecraft designs for Project Orion such as the bullet shape which varied in size, a design featured in Carl Sagan's Cosmos drawn by Rick Sternbeck and the Orion design shown above and below this paragraph form which I borrow for my Project Daedalus/Icarus-style fusion pulse propelled variant.  I will talk about Daedalus and Icarus in the next post since they are two concepts that I borrow from in rejuvenating Orion.

Despite its demise, there has been talk of possible rebirth of Project Orion which as far as I know all but what I say is about bringing it back with the same propulsion system it was originally intended to use.  I take it one whole refit further and change the propulsion to a safer and more efficient propulsion system.

Introduction and Blog Rules

Hello, I am Timothy McHugh the self-appointed chief designer of the Project Orion Renaissance and I am designing a deuterium-helium3 fusion pulse Orion starship ever since I first conceived the refit in the morning of Thursday, February 18, 1999.  I used to call the D-He3 Orion "Orion II" or "Project Orion II" but I just now call it Orion and a part of the first Project Orion.  Project Orion was first started in top secret in 1958 and was originally intended to use nuclear explosives behind a pusher plate for propulsion and was under development until being shut down in 1965.  Orion was terminated because of the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which forbids nuclear weapons explosions in space.  Plus there is talk of a potential comeback of Project Orion as in this article called Project Orion: It's Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth written by Michael Flora but the article talks about Orion returning with the same propulsion that it was originally intended to use.  I take it a whole refit further by changing Orion's propulsion system to the D-He3 inertial confinement fusion pulse propulsion system which Project Daedalus in the 1970s and the current Project Icarus spacecraft were designed to use.

Project Orion Renaissance No-No's:


1) Never voice any bigotry whether it be based of color, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.  All hate speech will be removed and bigots who engage in hate speech will be blocked.

2) There is zero tolerance for the brand of Anti-Lion King Fanaticism which an infamous amateur film critic known as Confused Matthew and a YouTube commentator known as SuperGzilla12 and their loyal fans harbor.  I will block anyone who dares to tell me that Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa are assholes, selfish, greedy, lazy, or evil.

3) I will not tolerate anyone daring to tell me that Star Trek promotes racism or that the United Federation of Planets is a communist regime as touted by the likes of Michael Wong and his StarDestroyer.Net and will block such people who say those types of things.

4) I will not tolerate any trash talk about James Cameron's Avatar such as the notion that it was poorly done, that it is homophobic, that it rips off other movies like Dances With Wolves, etc and will block such nincompoops who say those types of things about my current favorite movie just to discredit it.  I will also block those who endorse genocidal fantasies against Avatar like a YouTube user known as Radith87 who made two "How Avatar Should Have Ended" videos glorifying the use of the Death Star to destroy Pandora.

Now that I hope you are acquainted with my blog and agree to my rules of not to do any of the no-no's that I listed above.