Montblack wrote:
("Danny Deger" wrote)
You can not be any more wrong about this. In space craft design, weight
is EVERYTHING.

For getting your payload (one time) up to space, after that weight is much
less of an issue. g

But then there was the infamous Project Orion in the '50s, which was a
spaceship designed to be pushed along by multiple atomic blasts. It
was envisioned to hold 200 crew, weigh thousands of tons, and be able
to get to Mars and back in four weeks (!!!). I think they planned to
use two Saturn V's to launch it, in case people objected to using the
atomic blasts inside the atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/bo...on_020709.html

Gotta love those wacky rocket scientists.

Kev