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.
Ja sam istoričar. Stiv nam je pričao o budućnosti "sitne" tehnologije; Ja ću vam prikazati deo prošlosti velike tehnologije. Reč je o projektu kojim bi svemirski brod od 4000 tona nuklearne snage stigao na Saturn i Jupiter. Ovo se dešavalo još u doba mog detinjstva -- od 1957. do 1965. Projekat je bio strogo poverljiv. Pričamo o nečemu što ne samo da nije opozvano kao državna tajna, već je ponovo postalo državna tajna.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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 bude u redu, sledeće godine ću imati još više da vam ispričam, ako ne završim u zatvoru kao Ven Ho Li. (Smeh)
(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, reč je o letelici veličine hotela Mariot, štaviše, nešto višoj i nešto dužoj. Jedna od osoba koje su na njoj radili na početku je bio moj otac, Frimen, ovde u sredini. Na slici smo ja i moja sestra, Ester, koja je čest posetilac TED susreta. Ja nisam specijalno voleo svemirske brodove na nuklearni pogon. Mislim, bila je to dobra ideja, ali ja sam počeo da pravim kajake. Imali smo nekoliko kajaka. Čisto da znate, nisam Dr. Čudoljub (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 vreme dok sam bio na raznim putovanjima kajakom na čudnim, prelepim delovima ove planete, uvek sam u pozadini razmišljao o Projektu Orion, i kako su moj otac i njegovi prijatelji pravili te velike svemirske brodove. Oni su stvarno bili spremni da odu, da zaista odu. Ted Tejlor, vođa projekta, je hteo da povede i svoju decu. Moj otac nije imao nameru da nas povede; i to je bio jedan od razloga što skoro nismo pričali nekoliko godina.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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."
Projekat je započet 1957. ovde u Dženeral Atomiksu. To je tačno na obali mora u La Hoji (u San Dijegu). Pogledajte centralnu zgradu u sredini ove slike: to je biblioteka prečnika oko 40 metara, što je bila tačno veličina baze svemirskog broda. Sad zamislite tu biblioteku na dnu letelice -- tačno toliko velika je trebalo da bude. Zahtevala bi oko 2000 ili 3000 bombi. Na ovom projektu je radilo i dosta onih koji su u Los Alamosu napravili hidrogensku bombu. To je bio prvi projekat agencije ARPA. Ovo je ugovor kojim ARPA daje prvih milion dolara da se započne projekat. "Projekat svemirskog broda je zvanično počeo. Posao te očekuje. Dajson." To je bilo u julu 1958. Dva dana kasnije, u dokumentu zvanom "Manifest svemirskog putnika" se objašnjava -- slično onome što smo čuli juče -- zašto je potrebno da idemo u svemir: "putovanja na satelite drugih planeta. 20. avgust 1958." Ovo su statistički podaci o mestima pogodnim za stanice na putu . (Smeh)
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.
Nekoliko mogućih dimenzija brodova, sve do jednog koji bi bio težak 8 miliona tona, dakle to je bila krajnja granica. Ovo je druga verzija: 2000 bombi. Ovo su bombe snage 5 kilotona i veličine omanjeg Volksvagena; Bilo bi potrebno 800 takvih da se letelica podigne u orbitu. Ovde vidimo brod od 10 kilotona koji bi poneo 1300 tona do Saturna i nazad; to bi bio put od 5 godina. Mogući datumi poletanja: od oktobra 1960. do februara 1967. (Smeh) Ovo je trajektorija puta do Marsa; sve je crtano rukom i uz pomoć lenjira. Mali brod Orion i šta bi sve bilo potrebno da brod kao Orion poleti: jer reč je o brodu veličine Empajer Stejt Bildinga.
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 zainteresovana; pokušali su da prekinu projekat. Ljudi koji su dali podršku su bili iz Er Forsa (Vojno Vazduhoplovstvo), što je značilo da je sve bilo velika tajna. I zato kad sa nečega skinete oznaku "vojna tajna", to izgleda ovako. (Smeh) Jer u pitanju su bile vojne bombe, hidrogenske bombe koje su mogle da unište pola planete. Postojala je i verzija kojom se izvodi kazneni napad na Sovjetski Savez. Reč je o velikim tajnama: kako ostvariti direktnu eksploziju i pokrenuti energiju nuklearne eksplozije -- što nije isto kao štap dinamita, i pokrenuti je u pravcu letelice. Sve ovo je još uvek aktuelna tema. Jeste vrlo opasno, ali ja verujem da je bolje da opasne teme budu javne nego da se drže u tajnosti.
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 desilo u 600 mikrosekundi. Er Fors je stvarno počeo da gradi manje modele. Ljudi iz La Hoje su rekli: "Moramo ovo da počnemo odmah." Napravili su model koji se pokreće pomoću eksploziva. Ove slike su iz filma koji je neko sačuvao trebalo je da ga uništi ali nije i čuvao ga je u podrumu tokom poslednjih 40 godina. Znači to su paketi od kilogram i po eksploziva C4; to je otprilike 10 puta više od onoga što je onaj tip imao u cipelama. (Smeh).
(Laughter)
Ed Dej koji postavlja ove "konzerve" od kojih svaka ima po kilo i po eksploziva u sebi.
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.
Napravili su sistem koji ih izbacuje 4 puta u sekundi. Ovaj u sportskoj jakni što drži aktovku je moj otac. Oni su se bas fino zabavljali gradeći ovo. Nažalost, deci nije bio dozvoljen pristup; tata je mogao da mi kaže da pravi svemirski brod i da ide na Saturn ali nije mogao da kaže 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.
Celog života sam hteo da otkrijem nešto o ovome, i proveo sam prethodne 4 godine u potrazi za ovim matorcima. Ovo su kadrovi iz filma za koji je juče Džef Bezos ljubazno rekao da će ga postaviti na sajt Amazon -- barem jedan deo. (Aplauz)
(Applause)
Hvala Džefu.
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.
Bili su vrlo ozbiljni u izgradnji ovog projekta. Dimenzije o kojima pričamo su za nas i dalje vrlo velike i teško da ćemo ikad da se vratimo na sličnu zamisao. Ovakav bi bio osećaj u putničkoj kabini; to je kriva profila ubrzanja. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
I rezultat propulsivnog sistema:
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.
Ovde vidimo rezultat snage od 20 kilotona koji bi imao efekat od 10 miliona njutna. Ovo je bio mali problem, doza radijacije u kabini posade: 700 rada po udaru. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Rezultati fisije tokom razvoja projekta:
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.
nameravali su da naprave čistu bombu - nisu uspeli. Opekotine na očima: ovo se dešava onima u Majamiju kad gledaju gore. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Nivo buke u putničkoj kabini: to nije bilo 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."
frekvencija je niska, otprilike kao ovi zvučnici. A sad malo procene rizika na zemlji ako recimo brod eksplodira na samoj platformi. Tek krajem 1964. NASA uleti u igru i kaže: "U redu, podržaćemo studiju izvodljivosti za malu letilicu koja bi bila lansirana u delovima i potom sklopljena."
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 i uradila, napravila je verziju za 8 ljudi koja bi išla na Mars. To im se više svidelo jer bi se ljudi unutra osećali: "Hej, ovo je kao da smo u podmornici." Kabina za posadu. Ovde je sve naopačke tako da bi bilo u pravom pravcu kad se uključi veštačka gravitacija. I dalje je bio plan da naučnici putuju; trebalo je da ide 7 astronauta i 7 naučnika. Ovo je verzija za 20 putnika za Jupiter; spavaonica, sklonište, sala za vežbe. Jer to bi bio lepo dugo putovanje.
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 Er Forsa - verzija vojne letelice. Ovi dokumenti su i dalje državna tajna samo što su ih neki ljudi krišom odneli kućama i faktički mi ih predali pre smrti. Ovde se vide i neki umetnički koncepti: to su delovi neke vrste PowerPoint prezentacije urađene za Er Fors pre 40 godina. Van letilice se čak vide i male ljudske figure. Bilo je zainteresovanih i među ljudima iz NASA ali je rukovodstvo bilo protiv i projekat je zaustavljen. Tako da na kraju, iako su se stvari odvijale nekim predviđenim tokom sve do 1965. da bi se tek tada se sve zaustavilo.
Results: none. This project is hereby terminated. So that's the end.
Rezultat: nikakav. Projekat je prekinut. I to je kraj. Sve što mogu da kažem kao zaključak je,
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.
juće smo čuli da je jedna od 10 loših stvari koje mogu da nam se dese je da asteriod dobije ime po nama. A jedna od loših stvari koje mogu da se dese NASA-i je da se taj asteroid sa našim imenom pojavi posle 9 meseci i onda svi kažu: "Uh, a šta ćemo sad?" Orion je jedna od retkih, ako ne i jedina već spremna tehnologija koja bi bila od koristi. (Smeh)
(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.
Sad ću vam reći jednu dobru vest i jednu lošu vest. Dobra vest je da NASA ima malu tajnu grupu koja se bavi kritičnim situacijama zainteresovanu za ovo, i koja pokušava da sačuva stečeno znanje o Orionu u slučaju da prigusti. Možda su sklonili nekolicinu plutonijumskih bombi negde sa strane. To je dobra vest. Loša vest je da kad sam stupio u kontakt sa tim ljudima da bih od njih dobio neku dokumentaciju, poludeli su što sam ja bio u posedu dokumenata koje oni nemaju, tako da je NASA otkupila od mene 1759 stranica o ovome. (Smeh) Tako da tu smo, gde smo: ne piše nam se baš najbolje.
(Laughter)
(Aplauz)
(Applause)