Minature Orion Rocket

[Tuckerfan]

These folks claim to have developed a minature version of the Orion rocket, but this

The Mini-Mag Orion design compresses small pellets containing a few grams of simulated fissile material to beyond their supercritical point using a magnetic field. The explosion, equivalent to five tons of TNT (several orders of magnitude smaller than a traditional nuclear bomb), creates plasma that is directed by a magnetic nozzle to generate vehicle thrust. This highly efficient form of nuclear propulsion can produce enough thrust at high efficiency (specific impulse) to dramatically reduce the time required to travel between planets.

Has my BS detector going off. How does one get a nuclear explosion from simulated fissile material?

As much as I’d like to believe it, this strikes me as being in the “too good to be true” category. Anybody know if this is possible?

[Q.E.D]

Someone beat you to it.

[Xema]

I read the title as “Onion” – thought it was some potato cannon variant.