4 ms·
It's not a sustained reaction. It's just a bunch of short fusion reactions, one after another. We've been capable of short, uncontrolled fusion reactions for de
by jff 14y ago
It's not a sustained reaction. It's just a bunch of short fusion reactions, one after another. We've been capable of short, uncontrolled fusion reactions for decades--it's just that, being bombs, we didn't have much luck generating electricity from them. A hydrogen bomb uses a relatively small quantity of conventional explosives to start a reaction which ultimately releases orders of magnitude more energy than the original input. This engine claims to use a small input of electrical energy to trigger a reaction which releases a lot of energy. Then, much like a car getting blown off the road by a nuclear test, they just position their ship near this reaction and get shoved away.
The proposal specifically says they will not convert the energy to electricity, but will use the reaction directly for thrust.
- vectorjohn 14y agoActually hydrogen bombs don't use conventional explosives. They use fission. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_fusion_weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_fusion_weapon (a hypothetical bomb).
- lutusp 14y ago> Actually hydrogen bombs don't use conventional explosives. They use fission. Sort of, but because the fission trigger requires conventional explosives, one could argue that conventional explosives play a key role. In temporal sequence: 1. Conventional explosives compress the fission core. 2. At maximum compression, a special neutron source releases a burst of neutrons to start nuclear fission. 3. The fission trigger delivers a huge pulse of energy to the mixed hydrogen isotope / fission secondary, compressing and heating it. 4. The secondary begins to fuse, releasing much more energy than the fission trigger could produce on its own. The above is somewhat oversimplified: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon It's our weak imitation of a star.