4 ms·

Solid in a vacuum at what temperature?

• abecedarius 8y ago
  Whatever's practical for your giant pea-shooter and reaction chamber. But lithium is a soft metal at room temperature, so this part doesn't seem too constraining.
  • Retra 8y ago
    If you want to sustain a fusion reaction for generating power through heat, you're not going to do it at room temperature, and there're not many materials that will remain solid at fusion temperatures.
    • abecedarius 8y ago
      I said "shoot pellets at each other at a sizable fraction of c". The point is to hold together before the splat, so that by high density enough nuclei actually hit each other. This is a bang-bang kind of thing, not a continuous reaction.
      • Retra 8y ago
        We don't have any trouble creating fusion explosions. The whole trouble of fusion is sustaining a reaction. Fusion bombs already exist, and what you're describing isn't that different from an Ulam-Teller device.
        • abecedarius 8y ago
          Existing fusion bombs need a fission bomb for ignition. This lower-bounds both the bang and the unpleasant byproducts. A smaller bang can be used much more practically. For example, 20th-century cars were also powered by explosions. Somehow they outcompeted the previous dominant technology of continuous reactors, steam engines. To dismiss my half-assed idea by pointing to another, I'd bring up something more comparable, like inertial-confinement fusion.