I (and some NASA folks) are looking for suggestions for a name for NASA’s new nuclear propulsion initiative–something more poetic and mythical than, say, “Nuclear Propulsion Initiative” (though NPI is at least as good a TLA as SLI).

These are my initial thoughts:

We could call it Son of Orion, but Orion had no offspring–he was killed by the father of a woman he courted, via scorpion or other means, depending on the version of the story. And Son Of Orion makes it sound too much like a bad Japanese SF movie. Heyyyyy…how about Mothra? Or Rodan? Or Godzilla? Let’s borrow from modern mythology.

Hermes or Mercury would be most appropriate, but they’re taken. At least Mercury is (since the European Hermes never flew, perhaps it could be considered to be still available).

How about Argo? A propulsion system fit for long voyages. The JASONS would like it, if they were still around, but I think that DARPA has disbanded/defunded them…

Of course, if we want to go Norse, I don’t think that Odin has ever been used for anything significant.

It might be sacriligeous to the Indians, but Hindus aren’t all that uptight about such things, generally, so we could also go with Kalki, the tenth (and yet to appear) avatar of Vishnu. He will come astride a white horse, with a sword blazing like the tail of a comet. Seems appropriate to me…

Does anyone have any other suggestions? My experience is that my readership is generally better read and more knowledgable than me (at least collectively). Any classicists out there with more ideas?