August 05, 2006
Orion

Not sure yet what to think of this: Project Orion to Follow Apollo to the Moon. (Doesn't seem to be anything newer about it in the news, but this name choice was confirmed a couple days ago in a memo from Skip Hatfield.)

I suppose like any name they might have chosen, it will take a little time to grow on me. But unlike the other candidate names which have been tossed around in the past few months, this one has a peculiar space-related association that will be hard to shake. On the bright side, though, I'm sure this will lead to much entertaining moonbattery among the anti-space crowd when they notice this association and begin to suspect CEV is a front for nuclear pulse propulsion.

On a related note, Griffin last week at the Mars Society Conference in D.C. sadly laid to rest any (however remote) hopes that NASA will revive nuclear thermal propulsion any time soon.

Posted by T.L. James on August 5, 2006 01:54 PM | TrackBack

Comments