Casaba-Howitzer (original) (raw)

Project Casaba-Howitzer was a 1960s-era study into the use of nuclear weapons as the drivers for intense beams of plasma for use in space warfare. The basic concept grew out of work on the Project Orion spaceship concept, which studied nuclear shaped charges. Very little information about Casaba-Howitzer is known publicly, limited primarily to mentions in defense spending documents during the mid-1960s (as part of the larger ), and once again in the mid-1980s when the concepts were revived as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative.