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That's some hating BS right there. ITER might fail to produce economically viable fusion energy, but it certainly won't fail to produce a massive amount of scie

That's some hating BS right there. ITER might fail to produce economically viable fusion energy, but it certainly won't fail to produce a massive amount of scientific and engineering innovation. The sole fact that such a scientific undertaking can be done internationally, over decades, is a great thing considering the global problems we face. Yes, ITER doesn't follow the USA economic ideology of "much", "cheap", and "now", but the world doesn't consist only of the USA and not everything works well with that ideology. ITER is not a PV or battery factory. It is more like the ISS.

ncmncm 5y ago
ISS is an apt comparison. Its apparent purpose while the Shuttle was flying was to be a place the Shuttle could get to. What it is for now is anybody's guess. In just a few years it will be a celestial light show, somewhere. I have no doubt that plasma fluid physicists will learn a great deal from trying to get ITER lit up. Just handed the money, they could have learned a thousand times more, and maybe even achieved practical D/H-3 fusion propulsion for spacecraft. But that will not happen at ITER.
- choeger 5y ago
  "Just handed the money", my ass. Did you ever work in science? How to you even think that money should be distributed in scientific institutions? Everyone gets a share based on ... what? Their degree? Number of publications? Consensus by committee? And for comparison, look what the ISS has brought us commercially: We have a fully commercial manned spaceflight planned for next week. That is a massive achievement without even considering all the scientific work on the station.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Handing 99% of the money to contractors for what will in short order be thousands of tons of radioactive slag contributes minimally to actual research. The developers of the overwhelmingly more practical FRC reactor are left to get by on scraps. Elsewhere in science, money is, in fact, being "granted" directly to scientists. This has gone on since long before you were born. All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button on each bit of automated equipment running it. Experiments are forbidden to involve more interaction, and also forbidden to operate without that "on" button, so the crew has something, anything to do. Commercial manned spaceflight could better have been worked without ISS. ISS's role was nothing more than a place to take them. Plus, a huge money sink on its own. It will soon fall out of the sky, and with any luck not hurt anybody where it crashes down.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      > All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button Why is this relevant?
      - naasking 5y ago
        I assume he means that the crew was superfluous because the "on" button could be pushed remotely or automated at a fraction of the cost of sending people to space.

ncmncm 5y ago

ISS is an apt comparison. Its apparent purpose while the Shuttle was flying was to be a place the Shuttle could get to. What it is for now is anybody's guess. In just a few years it will be a celestial light show, somewhere. I have no doubt that plasma fluid physicists will learn a great deal from trying to get ITER lit up. Just handed the money, they could have learned a thousand times more, and maybe even achieved practical D/H-3 fusion propulsion for spacecraft. But that will not happen at ITER.

choeger 5y ago
"Just handed the money", my ass. Did you ever work in science? How to you even think that money should be distributed in scientific institutions? Everyone gets a share based on ... what? Their degree? Number of publications? Consensus by committee? And for comparison, look what the ISS has brought us commercially: We have a fully commercial manned spaceflight planned for next week. That is a massive achievement without even considering all the scientific work on the station.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Handing 99% of the money to contractors for what will in short order be thousands of tons of radioactive slag contributes minimally to actual research. The developers of the overwhelmingly more practical FRC reactor are left to get by on scraps. Elsewhere in science, money is, in fact, being "granted" directly to scientists. This has gone on since long before you were born. All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button on each bit of automated equipment running it. Experiments are forbidden to involve more interaction, and also forbidden to operate without that "on" button, so the crew has something, anything to do. Commercial manned spaceflight could better have been worked without ISS. ISS's role was nothing more than a place to take them. Plus, a huge money sink on its own. It will soon fall out of the sky, and with any luck not hurt anybody where it crashes down.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    > All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button Why is this relevant?
    - naasking 5y ago
      I assume he means that the crew was superfluous because the "on" button could be pushed remotely or automated at a fraction of the cost of sending people to space.