Feature interview: the true story of the atomic spaceship

Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970. This was the motto of a group of eminent scientists in the 1950's who had an audacious plan for space travel riding atomic explosions. Physicist Freeman Dyson was part of the team that proposed using newly created nuclear bombs to get to Mars. His son George Dyson is an author and historian of technology who explores the groundbreaking science, political struggles, and moral dilemmas that ultimately sealed the fate of the endeavour in a book called Project Orion: 1957 - 1965.