M. Simon said:
“If the Polywell Fusion Reactor works (we will know in two years) we will have very cheap access to space.”
For the last month I’ve been studying IEC fusion. The notion of building a nuclear fusion device in one’s garage for under $3000 is intriguing.
Have you actually built a Philo Farnsworth style fusor that produced measurable fast neutrons? What method did you use to measure the neutron flux? How much did it cost? What sort of vacuum vessel did you build? Where did you get your high voltage power supply?
I can see the basic problem with IEC fusion: It’s the Bremsstrahlung radiation. It’s a show stopper and I don’t see any easy way of getting around it. I also looked at Bussard’s polywell reactor. It appears to be a reinvention of the old Lawrence Livermore Yin-Yang coil. I actually saw the Yin-Yang coil a million years ago during Family Day shortly before the project was cancelled. It was never explained to me why the Yin-Yang coil was a no-starter. Never the less, I think an IEC fusor would be a cool science fair project. If the thing wasn’t so damned dangerous, I’d try to convince my son to build one.
RWE:
Both Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong were pilots. It’s true that Col. Aldrin was the LM pilot but Armstrong was the pilot in command during the actual landing. A million years ago in graduate school as a teaching assistant I had a student named Mark Armstrong. He was a very nice young man who was a near clone of his daddy and also one of my best students. Supposably one of things that drove Dr. Aldrin was always being in the shadow of his father. Buzz Aldrin’s full name is “Dr. Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.”. His father, Edwin Eugene Aldrin, was an aviation pioneer, a student of rocket developer Robert Goddard, and an aide to General Billy Mitchell. I believe the driving force behind Buzz Aldrin was his desire to rise above his father’s shadow. Buzz Aldrin did that with a vengence and now Edwin Eugene Aldrin senior is permanently in his son’s shadow (perhaps not what Buzz really wanted).
RWE said:
“But he favors the Apollo style “direct ascent” for going back to the Moon.”
As far as I know, Buzz Aldrin is against going back to the Moon. Dr. Aldrin has long advocated “Mars Direct” and bypassing the Moon (a correct strategy IMHO).
