Vicariously Tour the National Ignition Facility

Dave Bullock writes "The National Ignition Facility (NIF) has been discussed several times over the years on Slashdot and just recently fired all of its 192 lasers. LLNL scientists predict NIF will attain ignition (controlled nuclear explosion) in 2010. For now, take a look at the photos I shot of NIF for Wired.com when I toured it earlier this year."

Comments

Re:"controlled nuclear explosion"

[Cold hard reality]

Because it's controlled.

Re:"controlled nuclear explosion"

[Jamamala]

Here's a link to a wikipedia section explaining what the summary means by "controlled nuclear explosion".

This is horrible news.

[chrispycreeme]

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) has been discussed several times over the years on Slashdot and just recently fired all of its 192 lasers.

You know the economy is bad when even lasers are losing their jobs..

*Ba-dum-cha*

One laser actually

[stox]

The process starts with a single laser diode. The output of that is split and amplified to make the 192 beams. Pretty amazing when you think about it.