ARPA/DARPA/NASA Orion Project - Still Active?

While perusing some TED talks videos, I happened across this one, outlining one man's experience of a hushed up government initiative known as Orion. To see the entire story, watch the video. For now, let me try and give a synopsis of the project.

The project, named project Orion, spanned from 1957-1965 and was based around creating a 4000-ton spaceship powered by nuclear bombs for Jupiter/Saturn/further projects. Until this lecture, most of the information was highly classified, and still is. This is just stuff that has leaked out

The spaceship was planned to be about the size of the Marriot Hotel, slightly larger, (130 ft diameter base, 295 ft estimated height) and was to be powered by around 2000-3000 5-kiloton bombs. The project was led by a certain Ted Taylor (source/description? I don't know who this is), was worked on by many of the original Los Alamos Hydrogen Bomb team, and began at General Atomic in La Hoya. It was officially the first project that was funded by ARPA.

The rest is just details, but the main point comes at the end of the video when the speaker reveals that information on this project is actually still kept in NASA's database, and NASA purchased over 1000 documents from the speaker.

The original point of the Orion initiative was to take astronauts to solar satellites further from earth than the moon, but what with military-based funding and concept sketches for defensive/offensive military satellite technology, it just makes me wonder about the point of such a project. The other thing of note mentioned in the video was the use of project Orion as an evacuation plan. With the increasing warnings of possible new asteroids in space headed for earth, this is the only real "off the shelf" technology available for a temporary evacuation of the planet (or at least that's what the speaker said) in the case of a catastrophic meteor strike.

So what is this project's true purpose? Is the government covering something big up? (well, there's a lot of stuff they are covering up, but is this one of the things?) What are the chances we'll need such a technology? I'd welcome any input.

As I was watching the presentation in the video, the one question that kept popping into my mind was, "What would this project be used for exactly?"

I suppose propelling a spaceship to Jupiter or Saturn could have some benefits in terms of scientific research and observation of our solar system. But with that being said...what else? I mean considering this ship would be technically "armed" with nuclear weapons I would think the project would be perceived as an attempt to deploy nuclear weapons that could be launched bound for targets on earth in emergencies or any sort of drastic action against an enemy. This just sounds too far-fetched to make much sense to me, although the evidence of the project being developed and considered, and even continuing to be considered a possible development illustrate that NASA and the government think this could hold some purpose for something...although I doubt we could ever find out the truth behind it.

Adverse public reaction to any use of nuclear explosives is likely to remain a hindrance even if all practical and legal difficulties are overcome.

From Project Orion-Wiki


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