this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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204
World’s 1st nuclear fusion-powered electric propulsion drive unveiled - Interesting Engineering (interestingengineering.com)
submitted 2 years ago by Dadifer@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] will_a113@lemmy.ml 170 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The headline’s a bit misleading. The drive is a plasma thruster, and the company found that by adding Boronated water to the exhaust the plasma would fuse with some of the boron creating a kind of afterburner effect, not a sustained fusion reaction. It’s kind of interesting as a way to boost the performance of the plasma thruster, but not “OMG it’s a Fusion Drive!!!” interesting.

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 51 points 2 years ago

Yeah, that's the fault of the article author. The actual press release uses "fusion-enhanced" which is a lot more honest.

To be fair, they're quoting a 50% increase in thrust so it's not completely clickbait to say "fusion powered" but it definitely does give the wrong picture.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Imagine all this work/research on fusion and some dudes like oh yeah my space engine does that

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fusion is easy. Getting net energy out is hard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Wasn't there an rocket concept like that from the 70's, using the freed electrons for containement or something? I saw it once on Wikipedia and then never found it again.

[–] user134450@feddit.de 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There has been some fusor research going on for decades. The issue that killed that direction of fusion research was ultimately that the electrons do not behave as the initial simple models suggested and in the real world the power loss from the fast electrons is just too big for any reasonably sized device to allow for self sustaining fusion.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Basically this. Look at all the big fusion reactor projects - they've been going for decades and JUST NOW hit a very miniscule amount of net output within the past several months.

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 36 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But do they stack in my inventory?

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Only the small grid version, which we haven’t unlocked yet

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

The first step in designing a fusion reactor is picking where to hide the power source

[–] PatFussy@lemm.ee 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is actual snake oil

[–] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What the fuck kind of snakes do you have living around you?

[–] hemmes@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Nuclear snakes

[–] LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 years ago

Pritchard?

[–] JayDee@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What is this cube and how does it relate to the drive?

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

When you plug two of them into each other it goes twice as fast.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 4 points 2 years ago

And 3 to make a sun into a torus.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

That’s what it looks like when it’s about 50% complete. At that point you need like 2000 steel plates and it’s a pretty slow grind.

[–] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

Not exactly inspiring any confidence trying to pass that AI-generated monstrosity as a photo of the device.

[–] AstroLightz@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Minecraft command block?

[–] rusticus@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I beg to differ. I present - the Ford Nucleon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This was a concept. The linked article claims demonstration. Big difference.

[–] rusticus@lemm.ee -1 points 2 years ago

It was a joke. WTF