The New Private Space Race

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From what I read, someone brought a Orion-derived battle-craft design to the Whitehouse..President Kennedy quashed it. And I'm sure there were plenty of protests too. I recall there were estimates of deaths that would occur from atmosphere-launch fall-out were around one to 10 million lives could be lost over time.
But...if it could be assembled in space and launched from there...now your talking reduced travel-times to just about anywhere the sun shines. A 4 week trip to mars, as opposed to a 2 year (Possibly 12 month min.) trip using chemical propulsion. Exploration to Saturn's moon would be a 7 month journey one-way, instead of 9 years!