On the Other Hand …
The usual type of controlled nuclear fusion might be several decades away, but there's a substitute we could probably build today if we were sufficiently nuts: Nuclear-powered piston engines.
Imagine a piston engine in which the cylinders are the size of the Vehicle Assembly Building and the spark plugs are replaced by nuclear bombs.
The best part about it is that it will keep environmentalists occupied protesting it and away from anything important.
1 Comments:
http://spacebombardment.blogspot.com/
The cool thing about this idea is that the atomic pulses can be directional, as in Orion. So the engine doesn't need cylinders; a dual opposing plate setup could supply compressed gas to turbines easily.
Theodore Taylor also had ideas for creating microwaves directly in a bomb, so beamed power pulses could be created in deep space above rectenna farms.
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