No, for once, you fuck, I know what I'm talking about. They were nuclear fission bombs, similar to the ones we use to scare other countries. The plan was to use the materials from our current nuclear weapons supply to create a propulsion system. Why in the fuck would scientists who can't figure out how to create a controlled fusion reactor want to try building bombs with the same reaction? It wasn't some wild idea that was going to happen in the year 2021, it was an idea for the near future.
It was scrapped for obvious reasons, as you said, however.
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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.