In some wayts, it is sad to see another vehicle named Orion.  Remember, General Atomics had an incredible design in the 50's for a pusher plate vehicle that could very well have had us having manned explorations within the solar system three decades ago.  The one good use we find for atom bombs has been subsumed into the fear of the masses.

Wow… Not sure what got into me.  For a moment there I thought NASA was actually planning to send a spaceship to another star without me ever having heard about it...

“Orion” was the name of a study project featured on the TV-series Cosmos which showed how an interstellar spaceship could actually reach 10% of the speed of light by using the energy of exploding nuclear bombs to push against a giant inertial plate – providing a “putt putt” action.  Now that really would have been 1GIANTLEAP!  Talk about the courage to try something new…  It really is a form of ultra-fast space travel that is doable with existing technology.  This makes me wonder all the more if “Heading to the Stars” could have indeed been today’s headlines if we really applied ourselves after Apollo.  We certainly let a lot slip away from us back then, didn't we?  That’s also the kinds of headlines that would make those in the Middle East (et all) ponder about their senseless destructions and warring.  To paraphrase JFK, wars and hatred are what is “easy” for humans to engage in... Uniting and going to the moon (and beyond) together is the “hard” part!

All Hail Freeman Dyson, Father of Orion!  Check out "Footfall" by Niven and Pournell!  A good read and an interesting view of the Orion idea.  Consider it for the Used Book Club selection.

See the Nature site.  RS Ophiuchi is approaching critical mass for a type 1A supernova!  Whoosh, Bang, Nasty!  How far away is RS Ophi, anyway?  Nature sayeth not.

The New Scientist has some additional infor that Defense Tech did not have on the newly announced "Polecat" UAV from the Skunkworks.  Wonder where the name came from, anyway?  Ya think?  Seems the boys are doing repid prototyping big time!  Print a plane!

I also thought of the nuclear blast powered Orion ship when I saw this headline... Even though we've had the technology to build one for decades now, I really doubt I'll see a ship of that magnitude built in my lifetime. I suppose we're bound to smarten up eventually though, should be interesting enough top see where we can go even with all the restrictions and disinterest that's in the way.

Actually, NASA can name their fictional mission anything they want because it will never happen anyway. The entire country has screwed up any chance of such a NASA thing ever occurring.
With that, I think they should name their farcical next series of "whatevers" Aresical Dorks.

The "entire country" didn't screw up any chance of Project Orion occurring...only the Administration that came up with the idea for the Vision of Space Exploration, and all the clowns in the Middle East who have to make that God-forsaken place the topic of news broadcast every year

Perhaps Project "Lewis And Clark".  The reason being that a return to the moon needs to be a "platform" mission only and will serve as the beginning of the journey to other planets, Mars to start.  I was 5 years old when Neil Armstrong stepped of the LEM and even at that age felt the impact of that moment.  I would like my children to feel the way I, and the nation did at that moment. Call it whatever they want so long as it becomes more than just a name.

To Wade Whitlock:

RS Ophiuchi (RS Oph) is a nova approximately 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. In its quiet phase it has an apparent magnitude of about 12.5. It erupted in 1898, 1933, 1958, 1967, 1985, and 2006 and reached about magnitude 5. The recurrent nova is produced by a white dwarf star and a red giant. About every 20 years, enough material from the red giant builds up on the surface of the white dwarf to produce a thermonuclear explosion. The white dwarf orbits within the distended atmosphere of the red giant, with an accretion disc concentrating the atmosphere of the red giant onto the white dwarf.

Honestly I don't think NASA is putting forth its full effort into the space program. There are many different ways and many different designs that they could use to bypass the problems that they are encountering now, but they just choose not to. There are so many engineers with various designs that I'm sure they could find something new to work out with all the new technology like nuclear power and foam breaking. They should try and find new and more efficient ways of making things work out.

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