 However the "Discovery" in the movie did not use this idea, as Stanley Kubrick thought it might be considered parody after making "".The opening premise of the show "Ascension" is that in 1963 President John F. Kennedy and the U.S. government, fearing the Cold War will escalate and lead to the destruction of Earth, launched the "Ascension", an Orion-class spaceship, to colonize a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, assuring the survival of the human race.Author Stephen Baxter's science fiction novel "Ark" employs an Orion-class generation ship to escape ecological disaster on Earth.