More Bounce to the Ounce – By Maciej Cegłowski
This piece discusses the concept of nuclear pulse rockets, a propulsion technology that uses nuclear detonations to achieve high thrust and efficiency. It contrasts this method with traditional chemical and ion rockets, highlighting its potential for deep space exploration.
Why it matters
It explores theoretical aerospace engineering solutions that could drastically reduce the mass and time requirements for interplanetary travel.
Maciej Cegłowski Jul 17, 2026 ∙ Paid 6 4 Share My purpose, and my belief, is that the bombs that killed and maimed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki shall one day open the skies to man.
—Freeman Dyson, A Space Traveler’s Manifesto , 1958
The nuclear pulse rocket is what you’d get if you hired a 12 year old to get you to Jupiter. It works by farting a continuous string of nuclear bombs (at the rate of about one per second) out its back end and riding the ensuing blast waves on a giant shock absorber, like a pogo stick. A series of hundreds or thousands of nuclear detonations accelerates the spacecraft to pretty much any speed you want, and when it’s time to slow down, you just turn around and start nuking in the forward direction.
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