Project Orion developed by General Atomics at Camp Elliot

Project Orion was the first engineering design study of a spacecraft powered by nuclear pulse propulsion, an idea first proposed by Stanisław Ulam in 1947. The project, initiated in 1958, was led by Ted Taylor at General Atomics and physicist Freeman Dyson, who at Taylor's request took a year away from Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study to work on the project.

"a new site, six miles inland from General Atomic on a decomissioned Marine Corps staging area known as Camp Elliot, in Sycamore Canyon. ... [General Atomic] set up a facility for firing explosive-driven plasma jets at sample pusher-plate targets..."

The former land of Camp Elliot is now owned by UCSD and used to house the Animal Care Program.

Taxonomybusiness » arms industry » nuclear » research
NRHP classificationevent-research-defense-nuclear
Location32.89018249511719, -117.10816192626953
Sources
  1. "San Diego's Secret Missile-Testing Sites" By Moss Gropen, April 2, 2008
  2. "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship By George Dyson"
  3. "Housing for Animals Involved in Biohazardous Projects"
See alsoDefense contractors help to found UCSD General Atomics General Atomics Electronic Systems General Atomics Aeronautical Systems General Atomics General Atomics General Atomics Photonics Division General Atomics Nuclear Waste Processing Facility NWPF-1 General Atomics Nuclear Waste Processing Facility NWPF-2 General Atomics Nuclear Waste Processing Facility NWPF-3
Record createdApril 12, 2008
Project Orion developed by General Atomics at Camp Elliot