It's sobering to think, nothing the entire private space industry put together has proposed comes close to what NASA was sitting on in the 1960's, with nuclear

It's sobering to think, nothing the entire private space industry put together has proposed comes close to what NASA was sitting on in the 1960's, with nuclear pulse propulsion. Now it's unthinkable. But with a slightly different historical path, we could today be launching thousands of tons at a time into orbit, on a trail of small atomic bombs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...