Some text that I moved from another article but have no time to integrate: 

 In the year 1965 The U. S congress canceled funding for the Orion  
 nuclear bomb pulse propulsion project because of widespread political opposition  to it. It was very probably an extremely, foolish , stupid , short sited ,  and unwise  decision for congress to cancel the Orion project in 1965. We need to beat our nuclear  
 swords (nuclear weapons), that we made for fighting an atomic  
 war ,or  thermonuclear war of apocalypse  into peaceful nuclear plow shares. 
 
 Reviving the Orion project may be  best, and most productive way to do this.   With Orions we can build a true space faring solar system wide civilization. We can even travel to the planets of other 
 stars within 10 light years of the solar system and colonize them within a maximium of 100 years of flight time using multi-generational Orion thermonuclear starships that can accelerate up to  10 % of the velocity of light, and thus achieve interstellar  
 space flight.  

 Some versions of the Orion Star Ship design can achieve only  
 3 % or 4% of light velocity , but other versions of the  Orion  
 StarShip can go faster.Look up the Orion starship,  and  learn more about it. Also look up the related Deadalas fusion microexplosion nuclear pulse rocket project.*