Vaporware.
These issues have led other researchers to question whether a tokamak might ever be able to serve as the basis for a practical reactor. Dr. Thomas McGuire, head of a team working on a novel Compact Fusion Reactor program, or CFR, for Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects division, had this to say on the matter in an interview with Aviation Week in 2014:
“The problem with tokamaks is that ‘they can only hold so much plasma, and we call that the beta limit,’ McGuire says. Measured as the ratio of plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure, the beta limit of the average tokamak is low, or about ‘5% or so of the confining pressure,’ he says. Comparing the torus to a bicycle tire, McGuire adds, ‘if they put too much in, eventually their confining tire will fail and burst—so to operate safely, they don’t go too close to that.’”
...
“The CFR will avoid these issues by tackling plasma confinement in a radically different way. Instead of constraining the plasma within tubular rings, a series of superconducting coils will generate a new magnetic-field geometry in which the plasma is held within the broader confines of the entire reaction chamber. Superconducting magnets within the coils will generate a magnetic field around the outer border of the chamber. ‘So for us, instead of a bike tire expanding into air, we have something more like a tube that expands into an ever-stronger wall,’ McGuire says. The system is therefore regulated by a self-tuning feedback mechanism, whereby the farther out the plasma goes, the stronger the magnetic field pushes back to contain it. The CFR is expected to have a beta limit ratio of one. ‘We should be able to go to 100% or beyond,’ he adds.”
hampered by the crew’s need for food and water on the ground.
...guess they came up with a disposable diaper system also...
BFL
now we’re talking
Where’s the patent that shows how they plan on converting fusion energy to thrust?
Lockheed spent a lot of resources on vertical take off and nuclear power for aircraft. Neither they couldn’t make either one work.
(They left an abandoned, unsecured nuclear facility up in the north Georgia mountains. They didn’t spend a lot of money on lead or graphite. It was an “air shielded facility”.)
They probably are working on it. The profit margins would be incredible during the 55 year R&D phase.
Developing the first practical fusion reactor for use in an small airplane seems akin to developing a working anti-gravity device to eliminate the need for belts. Sure, that’s one application but in the grand scheme of things that’s a ridiculously narrow view of things.
11 kg of deuterium/tritium is a lot!
From the wiki article on tritium:
“Ontario Power Generation’s “Tritium Removal Facility” processes up to 2,500 tonnes (2,500 long tons; 2,800 short tons) of heavy water a year, and it separates out about 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) of tritium, making it available for other uses.”
Government grant money mining continues.
MSM looking for a free easy story are their free ad men.
How much thrust can a fusion reactor provide?
If you said, “None,” you’re probably right.
They keep saying planes but if what they are working on is real and usable, then the plane they are talking about operates above the atmosphere, very far above ...