I'm a historian. Steve told us about the future of little technology; I'm going to show you some of the past of big technology. This was a project to build a 4,000-ton nuclear bomb-propelled spaceship and go to Saturn and Jupiter. This took place in my childhood, 1957-65. It was deeply classified. I'm going to show you some stuff that not only has not been declassified, but has now been reclassified.
Povjesničar sam. Steve nam je govorio o budućnosti male tehnologije. Ja ću vam pokazati nešto iz prošlosti velike tehnologije. Ovo je bio projekt izgradnje 4,000-tonskog svemirskog broda s nuklearnim pogonom koji je trebao ići do Saturna i Jupitera. Sve se događalo dok sam još bio dijete - od 1957. do 1965. I bilo je strogo povjerljivo. Pokazat ću vam neke stvari koje ne samo da nikada nisu bile otvorene za javnost, nego im je ponovno stavljena ozaka tajnosti.
(Laughter)
(smijeh)
If all goes well, next year I'll be back, and I'll have a lot more to show you, and if all doesn't go well, I'll be in jail, like Wen Ho Lee.
Ako sve prođe dobro, sljedeće ću se godine vratiti i imati više toga za pokazati, a ako ne, bit ću u zatvoru poput Wen Ho Leea. (smijeh)
(Laughter)
So, this ship was basically the size of the Marriott Hotel, a little taller and a little bigger. And one of the people who worked on it at the beginning was my father, Freeman, there in the middle. That's me and my sister, Esther, who's a frequent TEDster. I didn't like nuclear bomb-propelled spaceships. I mean, I thought it was a great idea, but I started building kayaks. So we had a few kayaks. Just so you know that I am not Dr. Strangelove.
Dakle taj je brod u osnovi bio velik kao Hotel Marriott, samo malo viši i malo veći. A jedan od ljudi koji su u početku radili na njemu bio moj otac Freeman - ovaj ovdje u sredini. ovo smo ja i moja sestra Esther, koja je često na TED-u... Nisam volio svemirske brodove s nuklearnim pogonom. U biti, to mi se činilo kao dobra ideja, pa sam počeo graditi kajake. Tako da smo imali nekoliko kajaka. Samo da znate, nisam Dr. Strangelove.
But all the time I was out there doing these strange kayak voyages in odd, beautiful parts of this planet, I always thought in the back of my mind about Project Orion, and how my father and his friends were going to build these big ships. They were actually going to go -- Ted Taylor, who led the project, was going to take his children. My father was not going to take his children, that was one of the reasons we sort of had a falling out for a few years.
Ali sve to vrijeme dok sam bio tamo negdje na svojim čudnim putovanjima kajakom po neobičnim i prekrasnim dijelovima planeta, uvijek sam se u mislima vraćao na Projekt Orion i razmišljao kako su moj otac i njegovi prijatelji trebali graditi te goleme brodove. Oni su stvarno mislili ići. Oni su zapravo trebali ići. Ted Taylor, voditelj projekta, mislio je povesti svoju djecu sa sobom. Moj otac nas nije kanio povesti. I to je jedan od razloga zašto smo nekoliko godina bili toliko neuspješni.
(Laughter)
(smijeh)
The project began in '57 at General Atomics there, that's right on the coast at La Jolla. Look at that central building right in the middle of the picture. That's the 130-foot diameter library. That is exactly the size of the base of the spaceship. So put that library at the bottom of that ship -- that's how big the thing was going to be. It would take two or three thousand bombs. The people who worked on it were a lot of the Los Alamos people who had done the hydrogen bomb work. It was the first project funded by ARPA. That's the contract where ARPA gave the first million dollars to get this thing started. "Spaceship project officially begun. Job waiting for you. Dyson." That's July '58. Two days later, the space traveler's manifesto explaining why -- just like we heard yesterday -- why we need to go into space: "... trips to satellites of the outer planets. August 20, 1958."
Projekt je započeo 1957. u General Atomicu. To je na samoj obali kod La Jollae. Pogledajte središnju zgradu u sredini ove slike. To vam je knjižnica promjera 40 metara. To je točna veličina baze svemirskog broda. Pa ako zamislite knjižnicu na dnu broda - tako velika je ta stvar trebala biti. Trebalo bi dvije ili tri tisuće bombi. Radnici na projektu su većinom bili iz Los Alamosa, ljudi koji su radili na hidrogenskoj bombi. Bio je to prvi projekt koji je financirala ARPA. Ovo je ugovor kojim ARPA daje prvi milijun dolara kako bi se sve započelo. "Projekt svemirskog broda je službeno započeo. Čeka te posao. Dyson." To je srpanj 1958. Dva dana kasnije: manifest svemirskog putnika objašnjava zašto, baš kao što su nam rekli jučer - zašto mi moramo ići u svemir? "Put do satelita vanjskih planeta" - 20. kolovoza 1958. Ovo su podaci koji određuju dobre polazišne i odredišne lokacije.
These are the statistics of what would be the good places to go and stop. Some of the sizes of the ships, ranging all the way up to ship mass of 8 million tons. So that was the outer extreme. Here was version two: 2,000 bombs. These are five-kiloton yield bombs, about the size of small Volkswagens; it would take 800 to get into orbit. Here we see a 10,000-ton ship will deliver 1,300 tons to Saturn and back -- essentially, a five-year trip. Possible departure dates: October 1960 to February 1967. These are trajectories going to Mars. All this was done by hand, with slide rules. The little Orion ship, and what it would take to do what Orion does with chemicals: you have a ship the size of the Empire State Building.
Neke planirani brodovi trebali su doseći masu od čak 8 milijuna tona. To je bio krajnji ekstrem. Ovdje je druga verzija - 2,000 bombi. Ovo su pet kilotonske bombe, otprilike veličine malog Volskswagena, Trebalo bi ih 800 za penjanje u orbitu. Ovdje vidimo brod od 10,000 tona - kako bi mogao ponijeti 1,300 t tereta do Saturna i natrag. U osnovi, to bi bio petogodišnji put. Mogući datumi polaska: od listopada 1960 do veljače 1967. Ovo su putanje do Marsa. Sve je izrađeno ručno, ravnalima. Ovaj mali brod Orion - i sve potrebno kako bi brod funkcionirao onako kako Orion funkcionira pomoću kemikalija. Brod bi bio veličine Empire State Buildinga.
NASA had no interest; they tried to kill the project. The people who supported it were the Air Force, which meant that it was all secret. And that's why when you get something declassified, that's what it looks like. Military weapon versions that carried hydrogen bombs that could destroy half the planet. There's another version there that sends retaliatory strikes at the Soviet Union. This is the really secret stuff: how to get directed energy explosions. So you're sending the energy of a nuclear explosion -- not like just a stick of dynamite, but you're directing it at the ship. And this is still a very active subject. It's quite dangerous, but I believe it's better to have dangerous things in the open than think you're going to keep them secret.
NASA nije bila zainteresirana i pokušali su zaustaviti projekt. Ljudi koji su ga podržavali pripadali su zrakoplovstvu, što znači da je sve ovo bilo tajno. I to je razlog zašto, kad s nečeg skinete oznaku tajnosti, to ovako izgleda. Vojne verzije bile su verzije koje su nosile hidrogenske bombe i koje su mogle uništiti pola planeta. Bila je još jedna verzija koja je napravljena za omazdu na Sovjetski Savez. To je zaista bila tajna: način kako usmjeriti energetske eksplozije, tako da se energija nuklearne eksplozije ne šalje kao kad eksplodira komad dinamita, već usmjereno na brod. I to je još uvijek vrlo živa tema. Prilično je opasno, ali mislim da je opasne stvari bolje držati dostupnima, nego misliti da ih možeš zatajiti.
This is what happened at 600 microseconds. The Air Force started to build smaller models and actually started doing this. The guys in La Jolla said, "We've got to get started now." They built a high-explosive propelled model. These are stills from film footage that was saved by someone who was supposed to destroy it but didn't, and kept it in their basement for the last 40 years. So, these are three-pound charges of C4; that's about 10 times what the guy had in his shoes.
Ovo se dogodilo u 600 mikrosekundi. Zrakoplovstvo je počelo graditi manje modele i zapravo je započelo ovo. Dečki iz La Jollae su rekli, "Sad zaista moramo krenuti." Izgradili su model pogonjen jakim eksplozivom. Ovo su slike iz filma koji je snimio netko tko ga je trebao i uništiti ali nije, nego ga je držao u podrumu 40 godina. Ovo su vam punjenja eksploziva C4 od 1,4 kg. To je otprilike 10 puta više nego što je onaj momak imao u cipelama.
(Laughter)
Ovo je Ed Day koji se brine da svaka od tih limenki sadrži 1,4 kg C4.
This is Ed Day putting -- So each of these coffee cans has three pounds of C4 in it. They're building a system that ejects these at quarter-second intervals. That's my dad in the sport coat there, holding the briefcase. So, they had a lot of fun doing this. But no children were allowed; my dad could tell me he was building a spaceship and going to go to Saturn, but he could not say anything more about it.
Grade sustav koji ih izbacuje u intervalima od po četvrt sekunde. Ovdje je moj otac u sportskoj jakni, drži aktovku. Dobro su se zabavljali dok su ovo radili, ali djeci nije bio dopušten pristup. Moj otac mi je smio reći da gradi svemirski brod i da će ići do Saturna, ali nije mogao reći ništa više.
So all my life I have wanted to find this stuff out, and spent the last four years tracking these old guys down. These are stills from the video. Jeff Bezos kindly, yesterday, said he'll put this video up on the Amazon site -- some little clip of it.
Tako da sam cijeli svoj život htio saznati što više o tome, i zadnje sam četiri godine proveo u potrazi za tim starcima. Ovo su slike iz filma. Jeff Bezos je ljubazno jučer rekao da će staviti ovaj video na Amazon, barem neki mali isječak.
(Applause)
Tako, zahvaljujući njemu.
So, thanks to him. They got quite serious about the engineering of this. The size of that mass, for us, is really large technology in a way we're never going to go back to. If you saw the 1959 -- this is what it would feel like in the passenger compartment; that's acceleration profile.
Postali su prilično ozbiljni u vezi projektiranja ovog. Veličina te mase, znate, za nas je stvarno velika tehnologija, kojoj se na neki način više nećemo vraćati. Ako ste vidjeli 1959 -- ovo je kako bi se osjećali u odjeljku za putnike. Ovo je akceleracijski profil.
(Laughter)
I ovo pulsni sustav.
And pulse-system yield: we're looking at 20-kiloton yield for an effective thrust of 10 million newtons. Well, here we have a little problem, the radiation doses at the crew station: 700 rads per shot.
Gledamo na 20-kilotonski pogon koji ima efekat 10 milijuna Newtona. Dobro, ovdje imamo mali problem: radijacija utječe na posadu -- 700 rada po ispucavanju.
(Laughter)
Fizijsko polje za vrijeme razvoja:
Fission yields during development: they were hoping to get clean bombs; they didn't. Eyeburn: this is what happens to the people in Miami who are looking up.
Nadali su se da će dobiti čiste bombe. Nisu. Opečene oči -- ovo se dogodilo ljudima u Miamiu koji su gledali gore.
(Laughter)
Odjeljak za osoblje. Obratite pozornost da ni to nije previše loše.
Personnel compartment noise: that's not too bad; it's very low frequencies, it's basically like these sub-woofers. And now we have ground-hazard assessments when you have a blow-up on the pad. Finally, at the very end in 1964, NASA steps in and says, "OK, we'll support a feasibility study for a small version that could be launched with Saturn Vs in sections and pieced together."
Ovo je jako niska frekvencija. Zapravo je poput ovih zvučnika. I sad imamo temelje za procjene opasnosti kad imate eksploziju na postolju. Konačno, na samom kraju, 1964., NASA se pridružila i rekla, "OK, mi ćemo podržati studiju za malu verziju koja bi se mogla lansirati sa Saturn Vs-om u elementima i spojena zajedno.
So this is what NASA did, getting an eight-man version that would go to Mars. They liked it because the guys could kind of live there and be like, "It's like living in a submarine." This is crew compartment. It switches, so what's upside down is right side up when you go to artificial gravity mode. The scientists were still going to go along; they would take seven astronauts and seven scientists. This is a 20-man version for going to Jupiter: bunks, storm cellars, exercise room. You know, it was going to be a nice, long trip.
I to je ono što je NASA napravila, znate, verzija za osam ljudi koja bi išla na Mars. To im se sviđalo zato jer bi na neki način ljudi mogli živjeti tamo -- poput života u podmornici. To je odjeljak za posadu. Okreće se, tako da su strane okrenute kad prelazite u umjetnu gravitaciju. Znanstvenici su i dalje željeli razvijati, i htjeli su uzeti sedam astronauta i sedam znanstvenika. To je verzija za 20 ljudi koji bi išli na Jupiter: spremišta, sigurnosti bunkeri, teretane. I sami znate da bi to bio dug put.
The Air Force version: here we have a military version. This is the kind of stuff that's not been declassified, just that people managed to sneak home and after, you know, on their deathbed, basically, gave me that. The sort of artist conceptions. These are basically PowerPoint presentations given to the Air Force 40 years ago. Look at the little guys there outside the vehicle. And one part of NASA was interested in it, but the headquarters in NASA, they killed the project. So finally, at the end, we can see the thing followed its sort of design path right up to 1965, and then all those paths came to a halt.
Verzija Zračnih snaga. Imamo vojnu verziju. To je takva stvar kojoj nije bila maknuta oznaka tajnosti, samo su je ljudi uspjeli tajno odnjeti kući i kasnije, znate, na samrtnoj postelji dali meni. To je neka vrsta umjetničkog koncepta-- to su u osnovi PowerPoint prezentacije dane Zračnim snagama prije 40 godina. Pogledajte na ove male ljude tamo, izvan vozila. I jedan dio NASA-e je bio zainteresiran, ali su u upravi NASA-e odlučili ubiti projekt. I, konačno, na kraju, mi možemo vidjeti koje su stvari pratile ovaj put dizajniranja sve do 1965. I onda su se svi ovi putevi zaustavili.
Results: none. This project is hereby terminated. So that's the end.
Rezultati? Nema ih. Ovaj projekt je zaustavljen. I tako je to kraj. I sve što mogu reći na kraju,
All I can say in closing is: we heard yesterday that one of the 10 bad things that could happen to us is an asteroid with our name on it. And one of the bad things that could happen to NASA is if that asteroid shows up with our name on it nine months out, and everybody says, "Well, what are we going to do?" And Orion is really one of the only, if not the only, off-the-shelf technologies that could do something.
čuli smo jučer da je jedna od loših stvari koja nam se može dogoditi je asteroid s našim imenom na sebi. I jedna od loših stvari koja bi se mogla desiti NASA-i je da se pojavi asteroid s našim imenom udaljen devet mjeseci, i da svi vele "Dobro, što ćemo sad napraviti? " I Orion je stvarno jedna, ako ne i jedina, razvijana tehnologija koja je mogla napraviti nešto.
(Laughter)
So I'm going to tell you the good news and the bad news. The good news is that NASA has a small, secret contingency-plan division that is looking at this, trying to keep knowledge of Orion preserved in the event of such a misfortune. Maybe keep a few little bombs of plutonium on the side. That's the good news. The bad news is, when I got in contact with these people to try and get some documents from them, they went crazy because I had all this stuff that they don't have, and NASA purchased 1,759 pages of this stuff from me. So that's the state we're at; it's not very good.
Tako da ću vam morati reći dobru i lošu vijest. Dobra vijest je da NASA ima mali, tajni prikriveni odjel koji ovo razmatra, i pokušava sačuvati znanje Oriona za ovakav nesretan slučaj. Možda da stavi par malih bombi plutoniuma sa strane. To je dobra vijest. Loša vijest je, da kad sam kontaktirao te ljude i probao dobiti neke dokumente od njeh, poludjeli su, jer sam ja imao sve te stvari koje oni nisu. I NASA je kupila 1,759 stranica tih stvari od mene. I to je stanje u kojem smo. To nije -- nije baš dobro.
(Laughter)
(Aplauz)
(Applause)