You have a treat in store.
Dr. Robert Bussard, (the originator of the Bussard Fusion Ram-Jet concept), gave a presentation at Google on the concept of electro-static (as opposed to electromagnetic or inertial) confinement of fusion products in a reactor based on Philo Farnsworth's "Fusor" reactor of the late 'fifties.
Yeah, that's right.
Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic television, was producing fusion in a modified electronic tube in the late fifties.
Bussard's innovation was to replace the electrical grid components with magnetic ones, so that electrons could be induced to stay in the circuit.
He gives a good description of why electromagnetic confinement has been a chimera, forever eluding our grasp. It seeks to confine plasma with magnetic fields, but the plasma is drawn to the walls of the vessel.
In electrostatic confinement, a virtual cage of electrons is built to house loose positive ions such as protons and boron eleven ions that oscillate back and forth inside the cage, occasionally colliding.
If the collision is head-on enough, and energetic enough, fusion results.
Energy can be captured from the flying helium ions by magnetic fields, and the potential for a compact and energetic reactor is enormous.
Bussard thought that we could make space ships fly with it!
NnBob, you're losing me here. The vacuum tube as we knew it (I still have a 1960s design manual for many dozens if not hundreds of such, and have designed circuits with it) is an electrostatic device. I can understand using the same "production" technology to create an electromagnetic device, as hinted in "Bussard's invention," but then the focus reverts to electrostatic techniques.
My best guess it that "Bussard's invention" is a combination, no?