...the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years.
Sigh.......................
Posted on 10/28/2014 6:26:04 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
PALMDALE, Calif., Oct. 15, 2014 – The Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] Skunk Works® team is working on a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years. Currently, there are several patents pending that cover their approach.
While fusion itself is not new, the Skunk Works has built on more than 60 years of fusion research and investment to develop an approach that offers a significant reduction in size compared to mainstream efforts.
“Our compact fusion concept combines several alternative magnetic confinement approaches, taking the best parts of each, and offers a 90 percent size reduction over previous concepts,” said Tom McGuire, compact fusion lead for the Skunk Works’ Revolutionary Technology Programs. “The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year.”
After completing several of these design-build-test cycles, the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years. As they gain confidence and progress technically with each experiment, they will also be searching for partners to help further the technology.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 113,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation’s net sales for 2013 were $45.4 billion.
Lockheed Martin Pursuing Compact Nuclear Fusion
This video explains the compact fusion reactor concept and the impacts it could have on the world.
I haven't read the article, but the excerpt indicates they're talking about developing a shovel that will clear a path into the woods where they will build a cabin
THIS isn't skunk work ... this is work that stinks and I BET'cha ... our tax dollars will come into play SOME how.
WW2 is over ... we won ...
Maybe there has been success in reverse engineering that alien technology from roswell and elsewhere as if there was anything to that.
Old news and a scam by Lockheed.
The acquisition of relatively low cost and mobile or portable fusion reactors for the production of energy will be as momentous as the discovery of fire was for human societies.
Affordable and readily available energy would be opposed with all possible prejudice by the left,
regardless of how safe and “clean” it was.
Not convinced it is a scam. The atomic propulsion concept was in T&E up until the Kennedy years and was quite promising. Should have gone forward but the Cuban Missile Crisis put the fear of radioactivity in the hearts of the common folk and was thus dropped.
My statement stands .... a shovel, yet to be built.
...the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years.
Sigh.......................
None of the fusion related research is useless. It takes a mammoth amount of trial and error to uncover what does and does not work when working with such high temperature physics. The reward, however, is ultimately worth every effort mankind can make to acquire the capabilities of nuclear fusion reactor energy production.
Propulsion using fission bombs is easy. Compact, controlled fusion, not so much.
How many experimental shovels would you “develop” just to have the opportunity too “acquire” the technology to make utilitarian fire on demand in a society who’s only previous experience with fire were raging forest and grassland fires?
It takes a mammoth amount of trial and error to uncover what does and does not work when working with such high temperature physics.
...
How much trial and error has Lockheed done, other than testing out their PR machine?
We are still developing the fire so uniquely, there's no reason to go look for another match.
PLUS ... y'STILL gutt'a have a shovel to dig the dirt to put the fire out.
Do you own an M4 or some variant thereof? How about a Hummer? Night vision goggles? Velcro? MRE’s with a flameless heater?
Your tax dollars were in play when those and many other technologies were developed, yet, you and me and millions of others enjoy the results...
I understand the cynicism...I’m a natural cynic...but if the DoD and Lockheed go into this as partners, both can benefit if the technology wins out.
Much of the engineering, analysis and conceptual work is done before cutting one piece of sheet metal ‘cause there’s really no point in spending extra $$ before then.
It’s called “proof of concept”...then concept demonstrator...there is a process.
Some of this may involve some of the work on the “Z-Machine” at Sandia. LockMart is the contractor operating Sandia.
Practical fusion has been 15 hypothetical years out for at least four decades. If that time is finally down to 10 calendar years, that is a very good thing. If.
“We are still developing the fire so uniquely, there’s no reason to go look for another match.”
That is an entirely false statement. Mechanical energy sources used by mankind were vastly inferior in quantity and utility in comparison to the chemical energy they subsequently used up to the adoption of fission nuclear energy in the 20th Century. Fusion nuclear energy will be vastly superior in quantity and economy to energy obtained from sources of chemical combustion and fission nuclear energy. Likewise, sources of energy derived from the annihilation of matter and anti-matter will be vastly greater in quantity than nuclear fusion, fission, chemical, and mechanical sources combined. Zero point energy sources derived from the forces which constitute the space-time continuum of the Universe and/or universes would then dwarf all previous known forms of energy sources.
Nuclear fusion energy sources are capable of accomplishing vastly greater levels of energy production and utilization fundamentally impossible to achieve with chemical and solar energy production. One of the many economically revolutionary applications will be the reclamation of elemental chemical feedstocks from garbage and extraction industries and molecular recombination of chemical feedstocks in chemical industries. Another useful application will be detoxification of pharmaceutical, medical, and industrial waste.
Yes, and even if it takes 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, or longer, the effort will ultimately be worthwhile for the later generations who do benefit from the efforts made by the earlier generations. If the benefits are suddenly realized in the current generation, so much the better. in any event, the effort must start sometime, the sooner the better.
The human benefits of nearly unlimited energy are staggering. As for the geopolitical benefits, those are even better.
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