JLawson wrote:When it comes to politicians doling out the bucks for Buck Rogers, who's gonna see the dough?
Politicians are hopeless. NIF and McDonalds are just convenient, money-bloated targets of opportunity for my sarcasm. I would not count on government funding to really bring Polywell to fruition, although it has certainly kept the idea alive.
I think tech-savvy venture capitalists, like Elon Musk, are a better option.
Polywell needs a SpaceX approach, once it finally oozes outside of Navy containment. Maybe Elon himself will fund it, after SpaceX and Tesla settle into routine production/operation.
come on delta V, say what you want about the government not doing stuff that are the most productive, even as a someone thats committed to polywell, I see the value of doing toroidal magnetic confinement, that gave rise to MHD theories and kinetic theories.
beam compression gave rise to corresponding theories that are useful for industry and other schemes. Granted all the knowledge we know now are very much settled 10 to 20 years ago, we havent learned a lot of really awesome stuff, break throughs etc.
However, dont claim like the government and plasma physicists employed by the government has just been drinking tea for 80 years. They've been doing stuff, productive at best, good effort at worst.
The trouble with private funding for something like Poly is that EMC2 would need to give up significant ownership and that's something most research groups are not willing to do until they know their idea is not working. USN can wave a hand and find $5M/year, enough to fund Poly; without it biting into their budget, so they don't need ownership. For someone like Elon to fund Poly, he'd want substantial return on his investment within 5 years, or it would not be worth his risk. In order to get that ROI, he'd want to negotiate significant ownership of EMC2 and I doubt that is something they'd go for, given they currently have free funding.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
The trouble with private funding for something like Poly is that EMC2 would need to give up significant ownership and that's something most research groups are not willing to do until they know their idea is not working. USN can wave a hand and find $5M/year, enough to fund Poly; without it biting into their budget, so they don't need ownership. For someone like Elon to fund Poly, he'd want substantial return on his investment within 5 years, or it would not be worth his risk. In order to get that ROI, he'd want to negotiate significant ownership of EMC2 and I doubt that is something they'd go for, given they currently have free funding.
This certainly is true to some extent. I think that the government still has to play an important part in funding basic science. Private industry is too risk averse to invest into things like that. There is just way more money in facebook and co, with much less risk.
That said, Elon Musk is not your average investor. He has alterior motives.
Basically it was pretty much just that summary found from that link:
2. Fusion. Musk believes that fusion power is a possibility for the future. A magnetic type of fusion, according to Musk, “a relatively standard type of fusion, if you will.”
TIME Techland has an article on NIF's 500 terawatt shot. Some confusion in the comments below: "What did they point the laser at?" Perhaps DeltaV can enlighten them.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.
