After seeing some of the facilities being used to build our nation's next-generation spacecraft, we were awed by the sheer scope and complexity of the Orion project.

ENGADGET: Lockheed Martin shows us how it's getting Orion ready to explore the cosmos

"This is the successful culmination of all of the design trade studies and activities to date, " said Mark Geyer, manager of the Orion Project Office at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

BBC: Spaceship passes critical review

The Java awe is supposed to reflect on Sun's "Project Orion, " a collection of software introduced this year to compete with IBM products.

FORBES: Jump for Java

Project Orion's low-budget approach hits at a conundrum of space debris.

WSJ: A Cosmic Question: How to Get Rid Of All That Orbiting Space Junk?

Experts are also taking a fresh look at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's 1996 Project Orion, a "space broom" concept to fry space trash with ground-based lasers.

WSJ: A Cosmic Question: How to Get Rid Of All That Orbiting Space Junk?