World’s 1st nuclear fusion-powered electric propulsion drive unveiled - Interesting Engineering
World’s 1st nuclear fusion-powered electric propulsion drive unveiled - Interesting Engineering
RocketStar Inc. has showcased its advanced nuclear-based propulsion technology called the FireStar Drive.
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.
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.
Imagine all this work/research on fusion and some dudes like oh yeah my space engine does that
Fusion is easy. Getting net energy out is hard.
But do they stack in my inventory?
The first step in designing a fusion reactor is picking where to hide the power source
What is this cube and how does it relate to the drive?
When you plug two of them into each other it goes twice as fast.
Not exactly inspiring any confidence trying to pass that AI-generated monstrosity as a photo of the device.
Minecraft command block?
I beg to differ. I present - the Ford Nucleon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
This was a concept. The linked article claims demonstration. Big difference.
It was a joke. WTF