Polywell FOIA

[CaptainBeowulf]

I tend to agree with TallDave. It's certainly within the rights of American citizens to make requests on where their public money is going, but... it might be time to back off. Sometimes large projects just take as long as they take, and you don't want to be distracted with extraneous paperwork...

And with something this important, you have to get your i's dotted and your t's crossed. Remember Pons and Fleischman?

[Roger]

Dan- I had put Bussard in touch with DJ White of Earth Trust, MR White had a group of VCers with 5 million. No agreement was forthcoming. Earth Trust has a 30 year track record on fund raising for enviromental causes.

[paulmarch]

Paul,
Quite the opposite. That is one of the reasons I have been dragging my feet with the FOIA thing as I have worked through the process.
I am conflicted with the idea that public money deserves public scrutiny, vs EMC2's ability to progress the project without outside interference. Tie both these to the fervent idea that open science is productive science and now you have a sense of where I stand.
To be completely honest, I have not be nearly as agressive as I could have been so far in the FOIA process. I have even <ignored/declined> offers of free lawsuit support in suing for FOIA compliance.

I believe in EMC and the honest attempt they are giving it, and I want to see them succeed. I even have stated publicly that I would drop the FOIA process if Rick asked or indicated it.
I am now at the proverbial shyte or get off the pot in regards to appeals. I either press ahead (and cause pain), or I refile a consolidated request and in effect start again, or I just leave it be, and see what happens.

FWIW and knowing some of the politics involved at ONR and EMC2, I go with what Tall-Dave has to say. EMC2 and their Naval benefactors need to keep a low profile for now if they are not going to piss off the Naval fission reactor group into taking actions against their fusion based R&D activities. It's a turf issue and who will control the future of naval energy...

[icarus]

What a mediocre, hopeless lot ... "selfish curiosity", "turf wars", "best we can hope for", "get your i's dotted and t's crossed" ...

Sounds more like an accountants funeral wake not bleeding-edge engineering project.

[Betruger]

Adapt or die.

[ladajo]

@ Betruger: No.

@ Paul: The original intent of the FOIA was to provide a mechanism to free EMC's hands for release of project info. At the time it was percieved/implied that Rick had more to share, but the navy would not let him. What the FOIA seemed to actually do was to bring to light a contradiction, in that the release denial was based on EMC's input to the navy that all the info regarding the project was/is proprietary.

I agree in the bigger picture the FOIA is some kind of thorn. And at a minimum it seemd to have prompted the VERY LAST comments we have seen from Rick regarding the project, including his <sic>, "I will be misunderstood again".

I am going to think on this and decide how I will go forward.

[Betruger]

No what? People insist on making NASA do unsustainable things. Result today is they're on their last chance to make the next launch scheme work. Or e.g. going into politics expecting never having to get your hands dirty, and refusing to face dirty reality because it's mediocre and hopelessly corrupt.

At some point you have to get your hands dirty to just get things done. I haven't seen definitive or compelling evidence that the apparent EMC2 "contradiction" isn't motivated by wanting to keep things quiet. Or it could be shoddy PR management, or worse scenarios like Chrismb and Icarus love to predict. Either way the bother doesn't seem worthwhile when they're possibly already tackling first functional fusion in history.
Why not wait till the end of the "2 year" (c.f. Nebel) period?


Edit - Ok, "no" you haven't asked him directly. Why not ask?

[CaptainBeowulf]

I fully support another FOIA at the end of the 2 year Nebel period. Maybe give them an extra couple of months because a complex project can easily slip a bit in schedule. It happens the whole time, even on projects that are "just" engineering, and isn't necessarily an indication of laziness or malfeasance.

In the meantime let them get on with fulfilling their contract.

[icarus]

In the meantime let them get on with fulfilling their contract.

The information in question is not from the current 'Recovery Act' easy money contract but the already 'fulfilled' contract regarding WB-7.

Completed more than a year ago now?

[KitemanSA]

In the meantime let them get on with fulfilling their contract.

The information in question is not from the current 'Recovery Act' easy money contract but the already 'fulfilled' contract regarding WB-7.

Completed more than a year ago now?

This and WB-7.1 may be the MOST difficult to get data on since they were truly DoN money. Since I don't have the contract for WB-7, I don't know what the delivery date was. The delivery date for WB-7.1 was supposed to be 31 Dec 09, but it may have been subsumed into the WB-8 contract which isn't due until 30 Apr 11.

[MSimon]

At this point I'm agnostic on the matter. A lot going on in the Mach-Einstein area. I'm going to see if I can raise them some money. So I'm willing to keep busy while I wait.

[rjaypeters]

Let them work. Wait patiently.

[chrismb]

Let them work. Wait patiently.

If it were 'just engineering' then I would agree. But there is still core science yet to be understood, and this requires constant external examinations. Without such testing examinations, the experimenters begin believing their own nonsense and we end up with cold fusion, Blacklight power, zpe machines, &c..

Magnetic fusion has already failed the metric of exposing itself to substantial externat critique - all those who did are no longer 'mainstream scientists'! The only one that passes this test is Mr Lerner, who is doing the outright best thing and appears to be exposing himself at this timeto continuous external examinations.

[rjaypeters]

You are right about the tendency to not critically examine one's own assumptions, and other things, as time goes by.

I cannot think of a poster on this forum who is not frustrated by the lack of information coming from E=mc2. So...

I should have written: "Let them work. Wait patiently, through the Spring of 2011 (takes time to write the reports), by doing something else in the meantime. Resubmit the FOIA on the stroke of the Summer solstice next year."

[icarus]

Wait patiently, through the Spring of 2011 (takes time to write the reports)

Did you not read the above posts, or read and not comprehend?

The reports for WB7 and WB7.1 are already written, that work was completed over two years ago now. This was the contract Bussard, (M Simon and others also) spent untold hours canvassing to get the WB6 results redone for confirmation, Polywell experiments restarted, etc, etc, (e.g. see google lecture)

It has nothing to do with interfering in current work (of whatever little importance that might be), stop making stuff up.

The longer the WB7, 7.1 results are kept under wraps the longer the ' current experiments' can be spun out without external examination ... it has gone from Bussard's open enquiry science utopia to the classic, 'we have a great technology but we can't show you ruse' nightmare in a quick 2 years. Its indefensible but there yous all go defending it.