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Workable Fusion Starship Proposed

Posted by Soulskill on from the for-sufficiently-difficult-values-of-workable dept.

Adam Korbitz writes "A former colleague of Edward Teller — father of the hydrogen bomb — has published a new paper proposing a design for what could be the first practical fusion-powered spacecraft (PDF). As described at Centauri Dreams, the design has certain similarities to MagOrion, a 1990s-era proposal for a nuclear-powered spaceship with a magnetic sail and propelled by small-yield fission devices. The proposal's author also has links to the British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus, a 1970s proposal for an unmanned fusion-powered interstellar probe designed to reach 12% of the speed of light on its way to Barnard's Star."

4 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. from the article.. by Silm · · Score: 5, Funny

    a deuterium fusion bomb propulsion system is proposed where a thermonuclear detonation wave is ignited in a small cylindrical assembly of deuterium with a gigavolt-multimegampere proton beam,

    that has to be right up there with back to the future. I mean, it has a frickin' gigavolt-multimegampere proton beam

  2. Re:To save time & skip the pdf by andereandre · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have read the pdf. Looks good to me, could find no errors in the math, so make it so. Now back to watching pr0n.

  3. Re:Great idea but pie in the sky... by xch13fx · · Score: 5, Funny

    If anyone needs a colonist I was recently laid off. I can weld and swim well.(You swim to move in zero g right?).

  4. Re:Kinda optimistic by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, and what's worse, they can't even get acronyms right:

    practical fusion-powered spacecraft (PDF).

    That should be abbreviated as PFS or PFPS, not PDF.

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.