Quote:
Originally Posted by lumberjim
I really hope we don't fuck this up.
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For the experiment to have credibility, it must be reproducible. Cold fusion was also reported in other labs. But it would not work in most labs. And so it did not meet a requirement for a useful conclusion. Something was creating that energy. But the whys and hows, necessary to have a fact, have not yet been provided.
This laboratory was hyped to budget cutters as a solution to controlled fusion for energy. In reality, that was only cover. Never understood was how fusion ignition starts. Fusion based bombs worked when somehow a fission reaction ignited a fusion reaction. That crude solution was never understood. By compressing a supercooled pellet of deuterium and tritium, then lasers hit that target via holes in a container called a hohlraum. This creates x-rays to ignite those hydrogen isotopes by compressing it to 40,000 times less volume. Yes, X-rays somehow compress super cooled hydrogen.
The 30 September date was an arbitrary date created to keep budget people satisfied. Previous attempts did not create a smooth confined compression. Laser configurations were adjusted to fix that containment.
This system is only about ignition. Lasers can fire only once every 12 hours. Fusion requires a laser hit maybe 15 times a second. This was never about creating energy from fusion. This has always been about understanding how a fusion reaction is ignited - also for weapons research. To create controlled fusion so as to learn how it works. In particular, to learn how X-rays from the primary, fission-dominated component of the nuclear warhead are carried to the fusion-dominated secondary. To even understand the life expectancy of existing nuclear weapons.