Star In A Jar - Fusion Reactor Works

http://www.space.com/34960-star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works.htmlhtml

How will this reactor play into space exploration?

 

If this comes to fruition... I would be very optimistic of our future. Maybe not interstellar travel.. but perhaps colonizing the moon, Mars, and the larger moons in the outer planets.

Now if only they can solve artificial gravity (without that awful spinning wheel design), and next thing you know, we will have permanent space stations, inter system ships and can begin to at least claim our system.. the possibilities are limitless.

But it will probably be weaponized by some idiot and nothing will come of it other than bigger bombs here to threaten each other with.

 

that's not how fusion power works.

 

It will teach us of new, previously unsuspected forms of plasma instability.

 

About as much as your local power plant plays a role in space exploration.

 

From the article:

Nope. Fusion byproducts include tritium and neutrons, the latter of which cause the containment vessel to become radioactive by neutron activation and furthermore cause structural degradation.

 

Just no rods--an improvement of a sort.

 

But that takes time.

 

A few years certainly and the radioactive byproducts have short half lives of < 100 years. However, the article remains incorrect.

 

If the energy from the fusion reactor can be converted into partial thrust that would be more than chemical engines provide then the effort would be well worth the trial and errors.

 

The link goes to a 404 page.

Edit: Wait, I see the problem. "html" appears twice at the end of the URL.

 

Maybe they'll call it, I dunno, an "H-bomb."

 

The reactor works but it's nowhere near of having a positive energy output.. experimental fusion reactors still need a lot more energy to work than they ultimately produce and the reactor in the article only managed fusion for a few milliseconds (but from an engineering and scientific point it is still a huge deal).

Just recently i read an article about a Korean experimental reactor of a different design than the german version that managed fusion for 70 seconds.. that is impressive and progress is being made but it's slow and extremely expensive.

However the prize at the end is well worth it and could lead to a global economic and social shift that only can be compared to the internet and maybe fusion can become even a bigger thing ridding us of the need for fossil fuels once and for all (i just hope it won't come too late).