The Aurora name One of the parts of the story that seemed particularly weak was the name Aurora was selected because it appeared as a line item in a budget document I am currently reading a National Academy of Sciences report called Review of the Department of Energy s Inertial Confinement Fusion Program which was published in September 1990 The paper discusses a variety of issues relating to controlled fusion experiments and led indirectly to the current National Ignition Facility efforts Why do I mention this Well on the very first page I found and a subsequent meeting was held in La Jolla on August 21 1990 to consider future experiments possible with the AURORA facility Aurora was a high power KrF ICF laser built at Los Alamos Given the time frame the general secrecy surrounding these machines and the common name is there any chance the line item in question was the budget for this laser