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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of a stretch to call a nuclear warhead a "reactor"...
It is a reactor when used, for a couple of nanoseconds....
I didn't find much to inspire confidence.
From the article: Lockheed shares fell 0.6 percent to $175.02 amid a broad market selloff. Shouldn't the market be a little more excited about this?
It's exciting to see that fusion has gone from being perpetually 20 years away to being perpetually 10 years away. ;-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion physicists I know are very sceptical that this design can work. It's a variant on a known design with a known problem: the plasma leaks out of the ends of the magnetic containment. It's also unclear why Lockheed would be publicising it this way at this point, unless it's a naked ploy for more funding from the DoD, and an attempt to bring in money (and possibly pressure) from non-classified sources. That being…
From the Aviation Week article that flexie linked: "The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built." They don't actually say it, but it sounds like they've only got computer models to work with at this point. Not very likely that they've actually cracked it.
Here is more on the tech, including a drawing: http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compa...
> could be ready for use in a decade. That's the standard issue joke. "Nuclear fusion has been just ten years away for the last fifty years" It is so common as a joke I'm surprised the article didn't mention it.
No, the standard joke is "thirty years away." Or at least it was. Strangely enough the number keeps decreasing with the passage of time.
10 - 765,000 results
15 - 9,730 results
20 - 793,000 results
25 - 8,750,000 results
30 - 709,000 results
35 - 4,700,000 results
40 - 472,000 results
45 - 10 results
50 - 493,000 results
Definitely not 45 years away.