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A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
G. L. Kulcinski, P. Cousseau, R. L. Engelstad, H. Y. Khater, J. J. MacFarlane, E. A. Mogahed, R. R. Peterson, M. E. Sawan, I. N. Sviatoslavsky, P. Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1641-1645
Fusion Power Plants and Economics | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963186
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of a 1,000 MWe light ion driven fusion power plant is given. Considerable progress has been made in analyzing the target performance and. its impact on the cavity design. Recent declassification actions in the U.S. have resulted in more detailed calculations that reveal a somewhat lower gain (⋍70) compared to those gains previously assumed (80-100). Methods to recover that more conservative gain from other parts of the reactor design include more efficient beam transport and higher conversion efficiencies to electricity.