International Fusion Reactor Project Moves Forward

mjgp2 writes to mention a BBC article about an agreement which will begin construction on the second most expensive scientific collaboration, after the ISS : the world's first large-scale fusion reactor. From the article: "The seven-party consortium, which includes the European Union, the US, Japan, China, Russia and others, agreed last year to build Iter in Cadarache, in the southern French region of Provence ... He said that the participants would aim to ratify their agreement before the end of the year so construction on the facility could start in 2007. Officials said the experimental reactor would take about eight years to build. The EU is to foot about 50% of the cost to build the experimental reactor. If all goes well with the experimental reactor, officials hope to set up a demonstration power plant at Cadarache by 2040. "

Comments

I sure do

[SuperBanana]

I bet you also subscribe to the "if only we spent the space program money on solving poverty/homelessness/starving people in Africa!" line of thought.

The ISS was put up a few years ago piece by piece and cost over a hundred billion dollars just in construction; NASA allocates another $10-20BN a YEAR for it. What did it get us? A plaything for the world's richest people, something for space fetishists to admire ("the sense of WONDER!") and something to put in our kids textbooks (which even in the US, they're starting to have to share because school budgets are getting slashed.)

A hundred billion dollars buys a lot of cement, plywood, 2x4's, and tin roofing. Buys a lot of wheat/rice/corn. It also buys a lot of tractors, schoolbooks, etc. To put things in perspective: the US's largest construction project, The Big Dig in Boston, MA, was unbelievably extensive and complex; 10 years, countless engineering challenges, and they overhauled Boston's inner highways and tunnels while keeping the city (mostly) moving. Despite the problems with cost overruns and fraud on the part of various contrators, it came in at about $15BN for a decade of work.

The 2005 Federal budget included about $65B for the department of Health and Human services, $53B for the department of Education, $50B for the Department of Transportation, $30B for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That's pretty much the meat and potatoes of all the major social things (well, except law enforcement). It totals $150B, and that is to handle the needs of about $230M people in one of the better-off nations in the world. The cost of "doing business" government-wise in Africa is probably a fraction of that; you don't need 5 tomes of federal highway standards, for example, to build a road from A to B. You just grade things, put down some tar, and stick some signs in the ground, and you're 75% there.

Given what a Billion Dollars can do in terms of basic human necessities and a country's infrastructure...yeah, I do get really pissed off every time I think about the International Space Station. Tom Toles, a Washington Post cartoonist, drew up this great comic on the endless circular nature of NASA.

Already too late

[boyfaceddog]

There is a problem here.

40+ years at the current fuel consumption levels will enable us to produce limitless energy - but not to be able to produce/maintain the infrastructure to deliver it. No matter how you slice it up, transportation of supplies needs OIL. Horses and llamas are not an option.

Elephants - maybe.

We're doomed!

ISS is not a "science collaboration"

[adminispheroid]

I am concerned to see the ISS referred to as a "science collaboration." What scientific groups ever asked for the ISS? What science has been done on the ISS? What results have come out? What science *will* be done on the ISS? The answer to all four questions is "None."

The NASA PR machine has used the "constant repetition" technique to get Congress and the public to believe that the ISS has something to do with science. Apparently with some success. But this does not change the fact that there is no science, and there are no results.