[CasearianDaoist]

Were we not originally in ITER in the early '90s?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Windcatcher]

We were, but Congress backed out in 1998. Since then it's undergone something of a redesign, due to some breakthroughs that have been found since then. It was originally going to use a purely (old-style) toroidal design, but now they're looking at newer techniques like the spherical torus. Also, we had a team at Princeton doing our own research which was yielding some terrific results. Now that they're looking into "burning plasma" which by its nature requires a much larger apparatus, it makes sense to join forces with other countries to spread around the cost.