We should have had a moon base by now with hundreds of people.................
Some born there.
When I was a kid I fully expected to be able to visit nice hotels on the Moon and Mars for vacations by this time....
Project Orion (not to be confused with a recent NASA endeavor) had the motto, “Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970. Begun in 1958. Killed in 1964 to make way for the far, far less ambitions Apollo program.
Small system exploratory ships would have had crews 150, Interstellar versions crew would have been in thousands.
Design and concept for nuclear explosion propelled vehicle. Concept, design and model built. System worked. Larger the better. Small 10,000 ton vehicle with crew of 150 planed, 40 million ton (= 265 supersized oil ships) interstellar vehicle next
The bigger the ship, the better it worked, using small nukes exploding against a pusher plate. Assembled in orbit or launched on conventional rockets to space.
Used water for shielding, so crews could shower every day.