I lived with somebody who worked on NIF --- back in the early days, before anything was built (they did theory modelling on the laser/holraum interaction). The

I lived with somebody who worked on NIF --- back in the early days, before anything was built (they did theory modelling on the laser/holraum interaction). They said the entire project was really just busywork to keep american scientists from working on other country's defense projects. And also predicted that while NIF might eventually break even, it was never a design that would be useful for power generation, and was only slightly useful for stockpile stewardship.