[ExI] State of California supporting Bussard fusion research?

[Brent Neal]

On Jul 25, 2007, at 11:24, giovanni santost wrote:

> Thanks Eugen,
> I agree with you we have to put more effort in solar energy  
> research, right now is very inefficient but if we could harvest the  
> available solar energy we would have solved the energy problem  
> (even just a small percentage of the solar energy reaching the  
> Earth would meet our energy needs for many years to come).
> Fusion, though, needs to be investigated because it could be also  
> an awesome way to produce energy in relative clean way and very  
> useful (looking ahead, that as transhumanists we tend to do) for  
> space travel, for example. They pay offs are some enormous that is  
> worthwhile to invest large amounts of money to achieve what would  
> be considered a milestone in human history.
> I 'm open to the fact that one single bright mind can outshine many  
> people in a very large science collaboration. I work in a large  
> science collaboration (more than 300 people) and I can tell you,  
> that it is more and more impossible for one single person to make  
> significant progress single-handedly. There are so many details,  
> some many tasks in a project like that that is necessary to join  
> forces. People claiming that they can do it better than all of the  
> people working in the large collaboration often they are delusional  
> and arrogant.
> But this is a generalization and Bussard could be different...
> I didn't look at the details of his fusion process but I'm sure he  
> did his homework but I'm also sure there is a valid reason why the  
> majority of scientists in the field are involved in ITER instead of  
> Bussard's fusion program.
>
>


Hey Giovanni -

Good to see you here. Not sure if you remember me or not, but we were  
in grad school together.

No one's pointed this out yet, but this Bussard is the one with the  
eponymous ramjet. His credentials are such that I'll be interested to  
see if he pulls it off. I've been singularly unimpressed with the  
plans for ITER and the progress on the NIF.

B



--
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein