http://www.space.com/news/060720_cev_orion.html

No, sir, I didn't like it. Everyone knows that Orion is a spaceship
propelled by nuclear blasts.

It seems that NASA's aversion to originality and innovation is
picking up steam. Oh, well. The taxpaying masses won't know any better.

doug

On Jul 21, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

Hi, I'm Larry, and this is my brother Darrel, and this
is my other brother Darrel... my parents done run outa
names.

--- Douglas May wrote:

The Orion could be used to ferry asteroids, large construction projects,
factories, agricultural platforms, etc, or a combination of things.

Keep in mind there's most likely to be no charity involved here. Somebody
pays.

George
cygo.com

On 7/21/06, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

To stop it you have to use rockets to turn it around to point its butt in
the opposite direction.

George
cygo.com

On 7/22/06, cygonaut wrote:

I think you missed something. This Project Orion
isn't the Project Orion that involves using nukes.
Instead, NASA has decided to name the Crew Exploration
Vehicle "Orion" and the CEV project is the "Project
Orion". You aren't going to be moving any asteroids
or large construction projects with the 4 man crew
exploration vehicle.

Apparently, NASA has run out of project names and
doesn't give a damn about confusing people.

Ed

--- cygonaut wrote:

Thanks for the correction.

George
cygo.com

On 7/22/06, Ed Minchau wrote:

unless im mistaken (very easily could be) orion was the name the guy
that created the idea of using nukes for propulsion gave it. not
nasa. nasa does not have a project that uses nukes for propulsion. im
sure the agency knows of it, but its not official. the project orion
that is soon to be launching people to the moon, is official. I would
imagine if all the ideas that are thrown out by different people had
a unique officially recongnized name, there would be no space names
that nasa could use for its projects.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ed Minchau

--- In spacesettlers, "Robert" wrote:

> unless im mistaken (very easily could be) orion was the name the guy
> that created the idea of using nukes for propulsion gave it. not
> nasa. nasa does not have a project that uses nukes for propulsion.
> im sure the agency knows of it, but its not official. the project
> orion that is soon to be launching people to the moon, is official.
> I would imagine if all the ideas that are thrown out by different
> people had a unique officially recongnized name, there would be no
> space names that nasa could use for its projects.

Right. We also need to keep in mind the little detail that ORION WAS
NEVER BUILT. So I'm not sure why we need to "retire the number," as
it were. A good argument might be made for not calling something
"Gemini" or "Apollo," but "Orion?" Never-builts shouldn't get that
degree of recognition.

Then again, I'm agaist changing the names of streets in Liverpoole,
and not just Penny Lane. Like anybody in Liverpoole cares what I
think about it.

"Robert" > orion was the name the guy that created the idea of using nukes for
>propulsion gave it. not nasa. nasa does not have a project that uses
>nukes for propulsion.

That was the name that the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now
known as DARPA) gave it, when they first funded General Atomics, who ran the
program (pulled the name out of a hat, apparently). NASA partially and
briefly underwrote it, as did the USAF, before the Test-Ban Treaty killed
it.
NASA recently gave the concept a new look, calling it EPPP for Externally
Pulsed Plasma Propulsion (thus removing all references to nuclear energy, as
in the former term Nuclear Pulse Rocket). They drew together all similar
concepts, like those known as Daedalus (from the old BIS concept for beam
compression initiated micro-fusion burst propelled star probes) and ACMF
(antiproton catalyzed micro-fission/fusion).
They gave them all, under this EPPP umbrella term, the name "Gabriel".
Their Mark-1 proposal was something very like the later Orion idea, to build
a 10 meter diameter ship and use a HLV to loft it above the atmosphere, or
to lift it in sections to be assembled in orbit, and fire the nukes only
above the Van Allen belts to remove all concerns of fallout contamination of
the atmosphere. They stated that the performance could be bettered a great
deal beyond even the original, still with no fundamentally new inventions,
and this "Atom-Bomb driven ship" (my favorite descriptive term) can
revolutionize what we could do.

Lucio wrote:
>http://www.space.com/news/060720_cev_orion.html
>No, sir, I didn't like it. Everyone knows that Orion is a spaceship
>propelled by nuclear blasts.

I don't know why you don't like it, and I'm not sure if it is similar to my
own dislike of it: the old Orion was distinctive. Anybody who heard of it
knew immediately what it meant.
Are they running out of imaginative and evocative names? "Prometheus" might
do, but they're using it for future nuclear power units for space
applications; I guess that fits. "Icarus" might do for the CEV, but
Constellation was as good as any. (They'd better save the name DC-3 for
something really good...)
What's with the fetish with changing the names of project ideas? How about
some progress in the projects themselves? Could we have a rollout of the
first boilerplate CEV test model instead of spending time and money
shuffling names around?

I'll have to dig around later, for a source for this full paper:

External Pulsed Plasma Propulsion
And its Potential for the Near Future
J. A. Bonometti, P. J. Morton and G. R. Schmidt
NASA MSFC, TD40
Alabama, 35812