If we had an emergency of some sort and Absolutely Had to lift several hundred thousand tons of material into orbit or beyond in the next couple of decades or face annihilation, and we have to work with real engineering and real physics as we know them, Project Orion is the only thing that stands a chance of really, truly working. However, the negative side effects are considered too much for people to bear. (Incorrectly, in my opinion. People badly overestimate the negative effects of a couple nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and really really really really really badly overestimate the negative effects of nuclear explosions in the solar system (hint: it's like it's being constantly nuked all the time by that big bright thing in the sky, the solar system isn't going to notice your wet squib of a firecracker), and against the value of what this would let us lift, I think it could be worth doing. But I concede the odds of this are basically identical to the aforementioned exisitential risk, since it would take nothing less to shift opinions that far within my lifetime.)
Well, hydrogen bombs, no. Nuclear bombs in general, sure!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propul...
If we had an emergency of some sort and Absolutely Had to lift several hundred thousand tons of material into orbit or beyond in the next couple of decades or face annihilation, and we have to work with real engineering and real physics as we know them, Project Orion is the only thing that stands a chance of really, truly working. However, the negative side effects are considered too much for people to bear. (Incorrectly, in my opinion. People badly overestimate the negative effects of a couple nuclear explosions in the atmosphere and really really really really really badly overestimate the negative effects of nuclear explosions in the solar system (hint: it's like it's being constantly nuked all the time by that big bright thing in the sky, the solar system isn't going to notice your wet squib of a firecracker), and against the value of what this would let us lift, I think it could be worth doing. But I concede the odds of this are basically identical to the aforementioned exisitential risk, since it would take nothing less to shift opinions that far within my lifetime.)