While researching Starbound, my new book on the realities of interstellar travel, I was often surprised by the bizarre, over-the-top spacecraft designs that scientists have proposed in well-regarded academic journals. The best-known of these is Project Orion (1957-1965), whose central idea was to propel an interstellar spacecraft by detonating a series of thermonuclear bombs behind it, giving the craft a succession of powerful kicks through space.
Long after the project ended, Freeman Dyson, who worked on the project, said: “We really were a bit insane, thinking that all these things would work.” Amen.
Plenty of other wild starship designs have…
