I'd like to comment more on this, but don't have the time right now.
See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 for a talk given at Google.
According to a very bright, Princeton educated physicist Robert Bussard, who has successfully created fusion in small, magnetically confined polyhedral devices, all of the physics problems have been solved, and all that is required to solve are engineering problems.
To find out what the benefits are, and why they had to be underfunded to get any government funding, at all, you can just watch the last part starting at 1:00.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Bussard that China or possibly India are likely to develop this before the US. This is tragic, in that Bussard is an American, the patents are owned by an American company, and there's no good reason why the US couldn't lead the way to a very benign ecological future.
Of the two, it is China that is working on "very interesting" tokamak fusion devices, apart from the huge (and, according to Bussard, likely futile) international ITER fusion project, and that "will beat ITER to the punch".
Developing these power plants would allow very rapid space travel. Going to Mars should only take about 4 weeks, and 76 days to Titan, a Saturnian moon.
So, don't be surprised when China not only leaves the US in the dust economically, but furthermore leaves the US still piddling with kerosene fueled rockets while they zoom throughout the solar system on fusion powered systems.
Maybe if we ask them nicely, they will let us hitch a ride.
Finally, Bussard's project got completely defunded a few years ago. He was getting funding from the Navy, "under the radar", but even the chump change he was getting was cut when the Navy's R&D budget got cut by 26%. The money was needed for George Bush's Iraq fiasco.
To find out why he's given up on the US government, including and especially DOE, watch the video. There is definitely a 'conspiracy' of careerism and bureaucracy (if you can call it that - Bussard certainly didn't).
Is there more to it than that?
edited to correct spelling of Bussard's name
See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 for a talk given at Google.
According to a very bright, Princeton educated physicist Robert Bussard, who has successfully created fusion in small, magnetically confined polyhedral devices, all of the physics problems have been solved, and all that is required to solve are engineering problems.
To find out what the benefits are, and why they had to be underfunded to get any government funding, at all, you can just watch the last part starting at 1:00.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with Bussard that China or possibly India are likely to develop this before the US. This is tragic, in that Bussard is an American, the patents are owned by an American company, and there's no good reason why the US couldn't lead the way to a very benign ecological future.
Of the two, it is China that is working on "very interesting" tokamak fusion devices, apart from the huge (and, according to Bussard, likely futile) international ITER fusion project, and that "will beat ITER to the punch".
Developing these power plants would allow very rapid space travel. Going to Mars should only take about 4 weeks, and 76 days to Titan, a Saturnian moon.
So, don't be surprised when China not only leaves the US in the dust economically, but furthermore leaves the US still piddling with kerosene fueled rockets while they zoom throughout the solar system on fusion powered systems.
Maybe if we ask them nicely, they will let us hitch a ride.
Finally, Bussard's project got completely defunded a few years ago. He was getting funding from the Navy, "under the radar", but even the chump change he was getting was cut when the Navy's R&D budget got cut by 26%. The money was needed for George Bush's Iraq fiasco.
To find out why he's given up on the US government, including and especially DOE, watch the video. There is definitely a 'conspiracy' of careerism and bureaucracy (if you can call it that - Bussard certainly didn't).
Is there more to it than that?
edited to correct spelling of Bussard's name
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