Project Orion - The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship: Book by George Dyson.
From the preface: "In 1957, tail fins, not seat belts, were standard equipment on American cars. Tail fins reached a peak in popularity with the 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air. Powered by a 235-cubic-inch straight six or a 283-cubic-inch V-8, with either manual overdrive or a powerglide transmission, the Bel-Air had a two-tone exterior, accented by anodized aluminum suggesting space-age Los Angeles rather than iron-age Detroit. Optional equipment, besides seat belts, included power windows, six-way power seats, and a built-in electric razor. The Russians were ahead in space, but General Motors was ahead on the road. This book is the story of Project Orion. In 1957, a small group of scientists, led by physicist Theodore B. Taylor and including my father, Freeman J. Dyson, launched a serious attempt to build an interplanetary spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs. This account, as best as I can reconstruct it, is the story my father could tell me only in fragments at the time." Link 1 Link 2
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
