4 ms·

Curious that they do not mention the far more developed fusion reactor in France, but anyway while I prize research in general I always reiterate that we can an

• moogly 4y ago
  ITER was mentioned several times in the article. I am guessing that's what you meant by "far more developed fusion reactor in France", even though "far more developed" could be argued since it's still under heavy construction and has not started operation, and thus has produced no results as of yet. D-T operations are scheduled for 2035, and it will most certainly miss that target. Plus, it's still an experimental reactor and meant to be a proof of concept. DEMO, a commercial reactor, would then be designed and constructed using the learnings of ITER (if it turns out feasible, which is unproven at this point).
• ceeplusplus 4y ago
  Moonshots need a focused direction of R&D, not design by committee. ITER is the definition of design by committee. VC backed funding is a much better model for this kind of idea where the tech is _almost_ there but need capital intensive build outs to validate it.
  • Bouncingsoul1 4y ago
    Really? the actual moonshot was exactly this, design by committee, no VC backed funding...
    • pfdietz 4y ago
      Apollo was also a dead end. It resulted in a system that was so expensive not even the government wanted to keep using it. It's taken a private approach to get launch costs down to the point that returning the moon may be practical.
      • BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
        If we had stuck with the Saturn V and conducted one moon landing per year, it would have been far cheaper than the Space Shuttle program. I applaud the private sector’s results, but the Apollo program was a national triumph and should in no way be considered a dead end technologically. It was the politicians that failed the program, not the other way around.
        • pfdietz 4y ago
          The Shuttle was an abomination of a program. At no point during the Shuttle program would it have been a mistake to shitcan the whole thing. Pointing to it does nothing to justify Apollo.
          • BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
            I’m not sure I understand where you’re coming from with the criticism of the Apollo program. What about it makes you believe it was unjustified?
            • pfdietz 4y ago
              I'm not sure how you're failing to understand. Apollo was a dead end, obviously, since we gave the entire thing up and still haven't been back. It was an artificially inflated exercise in national ego. In no way was it worth the money expended on it. (If you bring up science or spinoff arguments, I will demolish those in detail.)
              • BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
                More broadly, if we include Mercury and Gemini, it was a tremendous success in the sense of developing Astronautics as a whole. I won’t cite specific spin-offs, but the impetus to land on the moon so rapidly necessarily meant learning how to do things like rendezvous and establish communication networks. >”It was an artificially inflated exercise in national ego. In no way was it worth the money expended on it.” There is way more to it than mere pride. President Kennedy and LBJ decided to push hard with the space race as a means of economic warfare against the Soviets. The strategy was twofold: one, to get the Soviets to commit resources to their own moonshot program when they otherwise would not. We were betting on our economy being stronger than theirs, and we could force them to catch up to us. Two, to develop American industry and expertise when we had clearly fallen behind. The spending might seem wasteful but it created a ton of jobs and bootstrapped our space industry. We essentially closed the whole “missile gap” in about 7 years as a result.
• ncmncm 4y ago
  If you want to spend for energy production, fusion is, by far, a worse choice than most alternatives. Spend on building out existing solar and wind. Spend on building out transmission lines. Spend on improved solar, e.g longer-lived perovskites. Spend on a wider variety of storage media. Spend on cheaper electric-driven ammonia synthesis.