Project Orion: unpublished documents

Previously "classified" documents related to Project Orion, the now-aborted plan to send nuke-propelled spaceships to Mars and other planets. Details in this BoingBoing post and podcast.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xeni/sets/72157594329917915/with/272465095/
Prior to this web upload on Flickr, these documents had never before been publicly released.

Tech historian George Dyson collected these papers, and he is the author of "Project Orion," a book which chronicles the project and the lives of the scientists behind it -- including his own father, Freeman Dyson.

The name "Project Orion" is now being used by NASA for a new project, this one not powered by nuclear bombs. This time around, they're trademarking the name.

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items are from between 01 Nov 2003 & 17 Oct 2006.