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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
George H. Miley, Hiromu Momota, Linchun Wu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 166 | Number 3 | June 2009 | Pages 295-300
Technical Note | 2007 Space Nuclear Conference / Miscellaneous | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A8843
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A radical new inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion concept, the magnetically channeled IEC trap array (MCTA), is studied as a candidate power unit for interplanetary space travel. IEC fusion concepts are widely recognized to be attractive for space power because they are simple and lightweight. However, existing experimental IEC concepts, while very successful for low-level power neutron sources, do not project to high-power space applications because of poor confinement-time scaling and grid heating/losses. The MCTA concept addresses both issues: eliminating the need for a central grid by injecting energetic ions into this unique hybrid configuration and providing improved confinement by connecting a number of traps. Because of the linearly connected geometry and compatibility with an efficient traveling wave direct-energy converter, aneutronic fuels, such as D-3He, can be implemented. Thus, the MCTA concept has the potential to accomplish the demanding requirements of future deep-space propulsion and power by providing a high power-density propulsion system. This promise was amply demonstrated in an earlier, reasonably detailed design study by University of Illinois researchers that used an MCTA to accomplish a fast manned mission to Jupiter.In the present paper, we discuss the basic MCTA concept and examine stability issues that must be resolved to access the feasibility of this concept. Some important supporting data carry over from prior IEC experiments, but a full MCTA configuration has yet to be studied experimentally. If proven feasible, the MCTA development path would involve experiments at progressively higher powers aimed at the ultimate demonstration of a full-scale, several-hundred-MW propulsion unit.