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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
M. L. Spaeth, K. R. Manes, D. H. Kalantar, P. E. Miller, J. E. Heebner, E. S. Bliss, D. R. Speck, T. G. Parham, P. K. Whitman, P. J. Wegner, P. A. Baisden, J. A. Menapace, M. W. Bowers, S. J. Cohen, T. I. Suratwala, J. M. Di Nicola, M. A. Newton, J. J. Adams, J. B. Trenholme, R. G. Finucane, R. E. Bonanno, D. C. Rardin, P. A. Arnold, S. N. Dixit, G. V. Erbert, A. C. Erlandson, J. E. Fair, E. Feigenbaum, W. H. Gourdin, R. A. Hawley, J. Honig, R. K. House, K. S. Jancaitis, K. N. LaFortune, D. W. Larson, B. J. Le Galloudec, J. D. Lindl, B. J. MacGowan, C. D. Marshall, K. P. McCandless, R. W. McCracken, R. C. Montesanti, E. I. Moses, M. C. Nostrand, J. A. Pryatel, V. S. Roberts, S. B. Rodriguez, A. W. Rowe, R. A. Sacks, J. T. Salmon, M. J. Shaw, S. Sommer, C. J. Stolz, G. L. Tietbohl, C. C. Widmayer, R. Zacharias
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 69 | Number 1 | January-February 2016 | Pages 25-145
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-144
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The possibility of imploding small capsules to produce mini-fusion explosions was explored soon after the first thermonuclear explosions in the early 1950s. Various technologies have been pursued to achieve the focused power and energy required for laboratory-scale fusion. Each technology has its own challenges. For example, electron and ion beams can deliver the large amounts of energy but must contend with Coulomb repulsion forces that make focusing these beams a daunting challenge. The demonstration of the first laser in 1960 provided a new option. Energy from laser beams can be focused and deposited within a small volume; the challenge became whether a practical laser system can be constructed that delivers the power and energy required while meeting all other demands for achieving a high-density, symmetric implosion. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the laser designed and built to meet the challenges for study of high-energy-density physics and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions. This paper describes the architecture, systems, and subsystems of NIF. It describes how they partner with each other to meet these new, complex demands and describes how laser science and technology were woven together to bring NIF into reality.