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xkcd #2929: Good and Bad Ideas
(imgs.xkcd.com)
Alt text:
While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
Yeah I know, it's the same principle behind modern fuel engines. Still, using nukes for propelling something forward is a bit of a stretch.
Not just nukes, but nuclear shaped charges, at a rate of maybe one per second for a manned vehicle or even more for a faster cargo only mission.
If you can trust the human monkeys with the "shaping" of a rock that got us here, how you gonna distrust the widdle trivial matter of taking little bits of something and splitting them.
It's shaped charges, it's totally fine and sane. I'd happily get on the 1,000th Orion flight*.
*Only if that's a fresh hull