Time to Test is Now

The nuclear bomb is in fact the greatest gift to man since each one is an interstellar space fuel pellet. Any child that has played with a firecracker in a tin can knows by experience it flies off. Only in space it can't be tethered and would fly off in space, getting faster and faster. So you have to think scale and imagine the pilot, shield and conventionally powered return engines. What for?

 Most non-scientists have acquired via Newton’s Law of F=MA an understanding of how forces work in the real world. So with the greatest respect to Einstein would it be harsh to say that the theory of relativity in setting the speed of light as impassable is about as realistic as the theory that communism would create a worker's paradise? Nice idea but wrong. What examples in life are there of mass increasing as the object gets faster without any other force being involved? Sounds like nonsense. More importantly it prevents us doing the most obvious atomic tests in space since the capital investment would be in the 100 billions of $ and unless you can fly out of this solar system and rob another it wouldn't really produce any return on investment.

The time to consider manned atomic testing in space is now, before star wars is implemented. Since testing might damage some satellite and owners would have to be compensated, if it is done 25 years in the future and star wars is a reality then the military might just decide to stage a war in order to destroy the satellite to free up orbits for testing without having to payout any compensation. Obviously to fly out of the solar system the explosions would have to be consecutive, but that is a small technical detail. The real stretch of the imagination and faith is that the critical mass can actually be contained in space and well that's what needs testing.

I totally agree with Stephen Hawking that unless we do conquer space, eventually we will destroy ourselves. If this is still a potential reality for our children then there is still a duty to find a solution.

Time to Test is Now continued

So however dangerous the project proposal seems, we need now the cold war is over to examine this expensive option very closely. There is no leap in physics required, only the rejection of Einstein’s law for being far too clever, rather like socialism or communism. The only real limiting factor to such testing earlier on in our history has been the maturity of payload performance. No one is going to volunteer to sit on top of an exploding atomic tube unless it has been tested. If it cracks half way then you are not coming back. So bearing in mind a return interstellar voyage may take 1000 explosions, a target benchmarking testing programme may be 100. So even if your payload launch success rate is 98% as it sort of has reached nowadays, 2 out of the 100 will fail and scatter radioactivity on the earth (but not explode).

I do not believe we will ever discover another way of powering ourselves out of the solar system except through this method just outlined. If the Americans have not thought of it then perhaps we need to consider why they have a strange reverence to a man who looks rather crazy. What if we opt to stick more closely to F=MA? Observing Einstein’s Theory makes it easy to accept that the speed of light is an impassable barrier. In business you have to be positive and also in business no one plans 14 years in the future which is what you are asking an interstellar theorist to do if they accept the theory of relativity. Of course you can always sidetrack yourself into cryogenics and wait for developments...and wait for developments...and wait.

So without the cold war the treaties of the mid 60s, prohibiting atomic testing in space is not vital to maintain peace and we sort of have a window before star wars kicks in. The cost then of testing in space is a high risk of serious nuclear conflict because commercial satellites are expensive and it would be a little too tempting to avoid the compensation payments for damages from EMF by starting a war to avoid the payments.