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PRACTICAL fusion device by Princeton physicist suppressed

R.Mackey said:
Absolutely not.

....

This is about 500 times as much power as the Bussard generator you proposed, for slightly higher acceleration, of a similarly sized vehicle. 100 MW just isn't going to cut it.
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As I said, 100 MW was a full scale demo project. The point is to demonstrate net power.

From The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion: Superperformance Space Power and Propulsion

(p. 14)
Because of this B^4*R^3 scaling of fusion output, which makes fusion power scale as the 7th power of size, and the corollary 5th power scaling of system gain, it is obvious that little can be gained short of building the next system at full-scale.
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Going from 3 meters to 4.5 meters will give us a system gain of (1.5)^5 = 7.6 x. If we wanted to fit just the polyhedra devices, we'd get 3 (or 4 with a little hammering. :) )

If you wanted to get rambunctious, maybe by assembling in outer space, you could do 10 meter radius power units for a gain of (3.3)^5 = 391 x.


I strongly suggest that those who need so much help shouldn't make such obnoxious remarks. Rather than try to get rid of him, perhaps you should listen to what he has to say.
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I find this fascinating. Being subject to numerous insults, including from yourself (even if not directly), I find it amazing that you would take a joke as obnoxious. I had considered using an emoticon, but thought the humor was obvious enough that I didn't need it. Looks like I was wrong.

This wouldn't be the first time. I once posted about the cartoon elephant Horton (of Dr. Seuss fame) being a Republican psyop. I omitted the smilee, which was a mistake because some people (at the very pro-Democrat randi rhodes forum) took it seriously.

As for me, I would suggest that people who insult others or are rude, to lighten up. Even if they are mostly civil, at least compared to posters who are perpetually obnoxious.

As for posters who are perpetually obnoxious, why pay them any heed? Are they worth anybody's time?

For additional reading, this junior-high school level treatment may be of some interest, courtesy our friends at NASA Glenn. Happy learning.
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Thank-you.
 
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metamars said:
This wouldn't be the first time. I once posted about the cartoon elephant Horton (of Dr. Seuss fame) being a Republican psyop. I omitted the smilee, which was a mistake because some people (at the very pro-Democrat randi rhodes forum) took it seriously.
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Oh, I just remembered! I did use a smilee, and people took it seriously anyway.
 
I've never seen people get so wrapped up around the wrong axle.

The point is not whether or not it can be used for space flight, the point is whether or not it will produce the results (over-unity fusion) as advertised.

We've already done a thread on this, with Bussard's slight participation, no less. Bussard is no chump. He is a mega-monster in terms of the world of physics. But that does not mean what he is proposing will actually work: as pointed out in the previous thread.

What I do believe is that he thinks (thought, since he is now dead) it really would work. And he might be right: he's a smart guy and by no means a woo.

But I also think he used fairly novice woo-style tactics to promote his idea for the purpose of getting new funding. He used ever trick in the perpetual motion catalog to advance his agenda: this should (and did with me) raise some serious red flags. His old funding dried up because it originated from a source that was not authorized to fund it (The navy shall not fund energy-oriented research and development). They got away with it for a while because the amount was under the radar and the project was championed by a very high ranking officer.

His idea may (or may not) be worthwhile, but what is certain is that he never, ever, produced anything resembling an academic paper that allowed his claims to be independently investigated. He said he'd 'get around to it' but that doesn't cut it, IMHO.

It has all the earmarks of woo, and that is sad because he was a giant.
 
This thread is heading for the Science forum, if there is no conspiracy to discuss here.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: chillzero
 
Rob Lister said:
His old funding dried up because it originated from a source that was not authorized to fund it (The navy shall not fund energy-oriented research and development). They got away with it for a while because the amount was under the radar and the project was championed by a very high ranking officer.
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Now that's an interesting bit of info I hadn't heard before. It's findng this sort of sensible answer to the "Coverup!!!" allegations that makes JREF so useful.


Rob Lister said:
His idea may (or may not) be worthwhile, but what is certain is that he never, ever, produced anything resembling an academic paper that allowed his claims to be independently investigated. He said he'd 'get around to it' but that doesn't cut it, IMHO.

It has all the earmarks of woo, and that is sad because he was a giant.
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In addition to no academic papers, I haven't been able to find any patents or patent applications on this new technology. Searching on his name, the latest patent documents I could find were from the early 90s, and didn't seem to be directed to this technology, despite his claims to have filed for and/or recieved patents on this new work. So even more suspicious.

I suppose the applications could have been declared secret by the government, but in that case, I expect they would have frowned on him discussing them publicly.




chillzero said:
This thread is heading for the Science forum, if there is no conspiracy to discuss here.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: chillzero
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Probably a good idea at this point.
 
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And as mentioned before, the Navy funding for the Polywell reactor program has been restored. So not only was the loss of funding not suspicious in the first place, it's not even the case anymore.
 
Well, even if the OP is wrong and we ain't going to Mars in 2 days using that type of fusion, at least he has imagination and a good grasp of the subject
Imagination takes "if this, then this" and turns it into "what if this instead, then what?"
I say scientific advancement is a function of curiousity, so imagine away dude ( offer subject to peer review)
 
ellindsey said:
And as mentioned before, the Navy funding for the Polywell reactor program has been restored. So not only was the loss of funding not suspicious in the first place, it's not even the case anymore.
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The Navy was the good guy, here. And if they've restored some funding, they're still the good guy, only gooder!

Bussard was told not to apply to DOE, because they would "kill" it. I most certainly got the impression that they would "kill" it by burying it. And that is suspicious - to me, anyway. Even if their only motivation for doing so is to protect the careers of the current crop of fusion physicists and engineers, who have mortgages to pay and children to raise. This is certainly a plausible explanation, and not unlike the suppression of idea and research direction that has occurred at other government agencies, e.g., JPL.

If you watch the Google talk, you will see that Bussard himself talks about why DOE would be motivated to kill his project.

Note that he doesn't say that he was told that applying to the DOE would be a waste of time. That would be a very different statement from saying that DOE would "kill" it.
 
As to getting funding, are you really really really sure you want your experiments dependent on bureaucracie like the DOE, held hostage to budgets and politics?
They created the nuclear meses at Rocky Flats and Hanford, you know
I am certain that any fusion work done by them would result in a meltdown, because , for political and budget deficit reasons, low bids would be taken resulting in shoddy workmanship and accidents. Just ask the guys who worked at Rocky Flats for DOE's subcontractors Dow, Rockwell, and EEG and died of occupational disease because of it
 
To get back to the topic of fusion, rather than spaceflight, the whole conspiracy thing is rather silly really. All the various approaches to fusion power have the same problems. Physicists aren't trying to sabotage approaches other than their own because they're all trying to solve the same sorts of problem. It doesn't matter if you're working on tokamaks, stellarators, inertial confinement or anything else, you still need the same kinds of materials to cope with the high temperatures, you still need the same kinds of magnets to control the plasma, you still need to work out the same kinds of problems with plasma flow and turbulence, and so on. Any improvement in one will lead to improvements in all the others. Certainly there is competition for funding, as there is in any field, but in the end all that matters is what actually works.

Bussard's claims are interesting, but in the end are nothing special. His reactor is simply an improvement on the Farnsworth fusor. Just as with all other reactors, his never reached the break-even point. The big problem is that the claim that the power scales with the 7th power of size appears to be completely unfounded, and is almost certainly based on ignoring some important points which would reduce the power gain with size. Since the Polywell reactor never reached break-even and there is no reliable prediction of when it will, there is nothing to separate it from any other approach to fusion.

The reason tokamaks are so popular is nothing to do with conspiracies, it is simply that they currently have by far the best record, and have done almost since they were invented. Although no reactor has actually reached the break-even point, the JT-60 reactor would have if it were equipped to use tritium rather than just deuterium. Tokamaks certainly have their share of problems, but at the moment they just seem to be the best bet. When it comes down to it though, there are plenty of different approaches which are all in the mainstream, including the Polywell, and no-one would be too surprised if any of them turned out to be the most successful.
 
metamars said:
The Navy was the good guy, here. And if they've restored some funding, they're still the good guy, only gooder!

Bussard was told not to apply to DOE, because they would "kill" it. I most certainly got the impression that they would "kill" it by burying it. And that is suspicious - to me, anyway. Even if their only motivation for doing so is to protect the careers of the current crop of fusion physicists and engineers, who have mortgages to pay and children to raise. This is certainly a plausible explanation, and not unlike the suppression of idea and research direction that has occurred at other government agencies, e.g., JPL.

If you watch the Google talk, you will see that Bussard himself talks about why DOE would be motivated to kill his project.

Note that he doesn't say that he was told that applying to the DOE would be a waste of time. That would be a very different statement from saying that DOE would "kill" it.
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I'm not one of the JREF debunkers. I don't care what people believe. I will tell you, for the benefit of lurkers, that you're assumptions/presumptions are most probably incorrect.

Politics DOES have quite a lot to do with who does and who does not get funding, but this was not, IMHO, suppression. Bussard had talk, Bussard had rep, Bussard had 'street cred', but Bussard did not have what it takes to get this research funded: evidence. Not only did he not have it to begin with, he never developed/discovered it throughout the live of his project funding. That's a bad thing.

For the peanut gallery: I for one believe he was on to something, but that don't mean ◊◊◊◊: I'm a armchair novice and I can't do math.

What I do know is the manner in which projects like this get funded, even though they are technically not allowed. I've been in the government procurement business for quite some time and this particular project came as zero surprise to me.

When I first heard of this development (on this forum, ASMOF), I spent many hours trying to hunt down the exact vehicle under which he and his team got their funding. I never did figure it out even though I had inquiry tools most folk do not. That's not really a surprise because these types of projects are particularly hard to track down without a hell of a lot of research and a few FOIA requests to boot.

Typically, almost certainly in this case, this project was initially funded under a delivery order that in turn was funded under an IDIQ (indefinite deliver/indefinite quantity) contract. These contracts have guidelines as to what may or may not be funded. A smart (conniving) contractor can, under the tasking/approval of the CTO (Contracting Technical Officer) develop a delivery order worded such that it appears to be within the realm of the contract constraints (it is not the job of the contractor to right the delivery orders but that's the way they really get written: a CTO can't be bothered with such details even though it is his job).

It's an art really. Typically, if the CTO signs off on it then the CTO's boss -- the Contracting Officer -- will not second guess it. But, with the backing of the Contracting Officers boss, and boss's boss, it's a go unless it is worded so incompetently as to guarantee auditing. That may well have happened in this case and were it not for the very high-ranking backing, heads might have rolled. Clearly there was at least a hand-slap even for the admiral overseeing this vehicle.

Say I'm a CTO in charge of installing some sort of IT system on-board ships. I want a software package to help me do this but, alas, software development is not allowed under the contract from which my funds derive. What to do, what to do? Oh, look, process engineering is allowed. Well...lets fund the the software engineering under the heading of Process Engineering!
 
"Election losses" in caption for the third photo? What is that? Misspelling of "electron"?
 
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metamars said:
As I said, 100 MW was a full scale demo project. The point is to demonstrate net power.
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Um, you were the one who gave me the specs, pal. Don't complain about me if they don't work. Your question was very clear, and I answered it.

If you now think you can generate 50 GW with a reasonably sized device, that's fine -- but now you've got a waste heat problem. There's no free lunch.

metamars said:
I find this fascinating. Being subject to numerous insults, including from yourself (even if not directly), I find it amazing that you would take a joke as obnoxious. I had considered using an emoticon, but thought the humor was obvious enough that I didn't need it. Looks like I was wrong.

As for posters who are perpetually obnoxious, why pay them any heed? Are they worth anybody's time?
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Your behavior is hard to fathom sometimes, e.g. your insistence above that I should have thrown out your question and substituted more optimistic values on my own initiative. Nonetheless, I accept your excuse.

P.S.: There is an order of magnitude error in my derivation. See if you can find it. This does not make your system more viable -- it's a factor of ten too optimistic.

P.P.S.: I work at JPL. I don't speak for JPL, Caltech, NASA, or any other agency. I only speak for myself. And speaking for myself, there is no freaking suppression or coverup. Get real.
 
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R.Mackey said:
I'm reminded once again of Samuel Pierpont Langley, who might have been the first to achieve powered, controlled flight, had he not also insisted on launching from a houseboat, thereby requiring development of a catapault launch system as well as the first heavier-than-air aircraft. I repeat: Tackle one problem at a time.
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Didn't the Wrights also use a catapult lauch system?

I distictly remember seeing a weight drop to help launch one of their early fliers if not their orrigional one.
 
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