Difference between revisions of "Orion Drive"

Revision as of 21:31, 13 January 2026

An Orion Drive is a kind of Nuclear-Pulse Maneuver Drive used on some interplanetary or interstellar vessels. They are a type of Relativistic Drive/Reaction Drive or Impulse Drive.

Description

Orion Drives are a type of Nuclear Pulse Drive (NPD) that eject a stream of detonators which explode, producing a blast wave that presses against a pressure plate at the rear of the ship moving the ship forward in reaction. The pulsed pressure of the propelling explosions are smoothed out by Massive shock-absorbers. Orion Drives are specified by the type of detonation used for propulsion.

Orion Drive Variations

The Orion-1 (O₁) or "Fission Orion" utilizes fission or multistage fission-fusion detonators reacting against a massive pressure plate comprising approximately 10% of the ship's volume. A Fission Orion Drive produces significant radiation contamination as a byproduct of its operation. It is a TL–8-standard propulsion system.

The Orion-2 (O₂) or "Fusion Orion" utilizes a combination of nuclear dampers, induced fusion, and inertial compensators with a much smaller pressure plate to produce survivable thrust, with low to negligible radioactive contamination byproduct. It is a TL–12-standard propulsion system.

The Orion-3 (O₃) or "AM Orion" is a conjectural technology that is proposed to be the most advanced incarnation of the Orion Drive concept. It theoretically utilizes antimatter detonators, inertial compensators, and "ON-OFF" stasis fields in place of a pressure plate to produce survivable thrust, while producing no radiation or environmental damage. It is estimated to be approximately a TL–21 propulsion system.

The Hybrid Orion-2bis (O_2bis) is a prototype device, utilizing antimatter detonators or antimatter-catalyzed nuclear detonators, inertial compensators, and a small pressure plate (instead of the more advanced and hypothetical stasis field) to produce survivable thrust, while producing no radiation or environmental damage. It is estimated to be a TL–18-standard propulsion system.

History & Background

Pulse Drives of various sorts and configurations have been proposed, and in some cases actually built, by many cultures and species over the History of Charted Space. A few such projects were in fact rather grandiose affairs built by those species which dared to reach for the stars, but who had not discovered the secrets of the Jump Drive. Such propulsion systems were immense versions of those described here, and have invariably included variations on the proposed but never built types of Interstellar Nuclear pulse propulsion vessels proposed in the ancient Solomani projects named Project Daedalus or Project Longshot, or even possibly such concepts as Enzmann starships).

Library Data Referral Tree

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:

Starships:

Speed-of-Travel

Speed of Travel

NAFAL (STL) - (Not As Fast As Light) / (Slower Than Light)
Light Speed (c)
FTL - (Faster Than Light) - "Superluminal"

Astronomical Unit (AU)

» Imperial Standard Astronomical Unit

» Solomani Parsec

» Vilani Parsec ("Deshi")

» Imperial Standard Parsec

Impulse-Drives

Spacecraft Drives (Interplanetary Drives)

Reaction Drives:

Reaction Rockets:

Impulse Drives:

(Field Propulsion Drives / Propellantless Drives)

Z-Drive (Lifter / <1.0 D)
G-Drive (Gravitic Drive / <10.0 D)
M-Drive (Maneuver Drive/Thruster / <1000.0 D)
N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / <¹/₈ ly)

Reactionless Drives:

T-Drive (Reactionless Motion Thruster):

T_N-Drive (Reactionless Field Thruster: Advanced Gravito-Nuclear Impulse Thruster)

Deep Space Maneuver System - ("Reactionless")

Interstellar-Drives

Starship Drives (Interstellar Drives)
- N-Drive (NAFAL Drive / < ¹/₈ ly)
- J-Drive (Jump Drive / > 100 D)
- Alternative FTL Drives

References

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

Loren Wiseman. "Sublight Drives." Challenge 72 (1994): .
Charles E. Gannon. Hard Times (Game Designers Workshop, 1991), 84.
Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen. Fire, Fusion, & Steel (Game Designers Workshop, 1994), 72-73.
Don Perrin. Starships (Imperium Games, 1996), 71.
David Golden, Guy Garnett. Fire, Fusion & Steel (Imperium Games, 1997), 65.
Marc Miller. T5 Core Rules (Far Future Enterprises, 2013), 328-331.

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 The ''Orion-3'' ''(O<small><sub>3</sub></small>)'' or "''AM Orion''" is a conjectural technology that is proposed to be the most advanced incarnation of the Orion Drive concept. It theoretically utilizes antimatter detonators, inertial compensators, and "ON-OFF" stasis fields in place of a pressure plate to produce survivable thrust, while producing no radiation or environmental damage. It is estimated to be approximately a  {{TL|21}} propulsion system.
-The Hybrid ''Orion-2bis'' ''(O<small><sub>2bis</sub></small>)'' is a prototype device, utilizing antimatter detonators or antimatter-catalyzed nuclear detonators, inertial compensators, and a small pressure plate (instead of the more advanced and hypothetical stasis field) to produce survivable thrust, while producing no radiation or environmental damage. It is estimated to be a {{TL|18}}-standard propulsion system.
+* The Hybrid ''Orion-2bis'' ''(O<small><sub>2bis</sub></small>)'' is a prototype device, utilizing antimatter detonators or antimatter-catalyzed nuclear detonators, inertial compensators, and a small pressure plate (instead of the more advanced and hypothetical stasis field) to produce survivable thrust, while producing no radiation or environmental damage. It is estimated to be a {{TL|18}}-standard propulsion system.
 == History & Background ==