I’m reconstructing the innards of the Project Orion pulse units for the “Nuclear Pulse Propulsion” book. The more interesting bits are of course still classified, but enough details have wandered into the public view that some educated guesswork can be applied.
Below is a *very* preliminary and incomplete reconstruction of the pulse unit for the 10-meter USAF design. The physics package is a hollow plutonium spherical shell surrounded by a uranium “pusher” shell, surrounded by a high explosive shell, with a uranium neutron reflector around that. That’s within a uranium “radiation case that, for a brief split second, helps redirect the X-Rays and neutrons into the channel filler material, which absorbed the radiation, violently explodes and vaporizes, ionizes and accelerates the tungsten propellant slab.
If the FBI wasn’t aware of this blog before… I bet they are now.