Space Nerd Talk
UrbanMysticDee 
Bae > Bay
I always thought I wanted to be an astronaut, but the more I learned about what they do and all the math stuff involved I realized that I didn’t want to be an astronaut, I just wanted to go into space. I think only one private citizen, a Russian oligarch, went into space. He paid something like $40 million to get a ride on a Soyuz rocket, which has the highest safety record of any vehicle ever.
In 1968 a nuclear rocket was tested in the desert in the US. You can watch the declassified test footage here. It could take us to Mars in about a third the time of a conventional rocket and the mission was actually being planned for 1978, but Washington decided murdering kids in Vietnam was a better choice for the $10 billion price tag on the program so it was cancelled.
The rocket was actually built. This was off-the-shelf technology. We had it sitting there in the desert, waiting to go, and they cancelled it.
In 1968 a nuclear rocket was tested in the desert in the US. You can watch the declassified test footage here. It could take us to Mars in about a third the time of a conventional rocket and the mission was actually being planned for 1978, but Washington decided murdering kids in Vietnam was a better choice for the $10 billion price tag on the program so it was cancelled.
The rocket was actually built. This was off-the-shelf technology. We had it sitting there in the desert, waiting to go, and they cancelled it.