The book "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship" by George Dyson is really fascinating. The Orion project was all done before the Apollo projec

The book "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship" by George Dyson is really fascinating. The Orion project was all done before the Apollo project was planned, so it is kindof an alternative way the US space program could have gone. Rather than launching dinky little space capsules, they were planning on launching thousands of tonnes into orbit. The spaceship would be a literal spaceship, build similarly to how you construct submarines. The scientists involved kindof assumed that they personally would get to go on a voyage to Saturn (why not, there's plenty of space in the ship...). Compared to what we actually got, with chemical rockets, it was way more impressive!