For three nights this week you can watch SyFy's mini-series
Ascension that takes a look at what might have been if Freeman Dyson's earlier
Project Orion ever took off. The program started last night (December 15th) and runs until tomorrow night (you can also watch the episodes at the SyFy website). If it is successful, you may be seeing the start of a new series. Here is the basic premise:
In 1963, the U.S. government launched a covert space mission sending
hundreds of men, women and children on a century-long voyage aboard the
starship Ascension to populate a new world. Nearly 50 years into the
journey, as they approach the point of no return, a mysterious murder of
a young woman causes the ship’s population to question the true nature
of their mission.
Yes, the 1950s idea of powering a spacecraft with nuclear bombs was around many years ago and creates a good premise for this science fiction series. Some estimated that Project Orion could have taken us to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, in as little as 44 years (the SyFy program appears to be using the older calculations estimating a 133 year voyage). Pretty impressive. We have already gone about that long since the last moon mission in 1972. And now we need decades just to figure out what to do besides low Earth orbit.
