Stephen Baxter’s 2009 book “Ark” has a starship launched by an Orion booster. As with the “Michael” from Niven & Pournelle’s “Footfall,” is it described with a few snippets of text, here and there, but somewhat confusingly and with incomplete detail. I have attempted to reconstruct it for my Nuclear Pulse Propulsion book (“NPP in popular culture” chapter). In short:
1) Derived from 4,000 ton General Atomic design
2) 40 meter diameter dish-shaped pusher plate
3) Apparently only a single stage shock absorbing system… no gas bags or intermediate platform
4) payload composed largely of two 8 meter diameter, 50-meter long tanks
5) Pyramid-shaped nosecap
6) Lots of exposed structure, looks like a factory
Not shown here are the four glider-shuttles that the starship carries.
Suggestions and critiques welcomes.
