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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. Yamada, N. Pomphrey, A. Morita, Y. Ono, M. Katsurai
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | April 1995 | Pages 161-168
Overview Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11947061
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We investigate experimentally and theoretically the global MHD characteristics of an ultra-low aspect ratio tokamak (ULART). Since the ULART requires a substantially smaller toroidal field current, Itf, than conventional tokamaks, it has important reactor advantages. By fully utilizing the TS-3 merging spheromak facility with a slender center conductor, we have carried out an experimental study of the ultra-low aspect ratio tokamak with aspect ratio reaching as low as 1.05. The ULART is found to be similar to the spheromak in its strong paramagnetism and magnetic helical pitch. In this extreme limit, we investigate the transition of the spheromak (qa = 0, Itf = 0) to a ULART plasma (qa = 5–20, Itf < Ip). It is observed that a small current at the center conductor can significantly improve the overall stability of the formed plasmas by effectively stabilizing the tilt mode. We identify a threshold of Itf << Ip with qcyl(a) << 1 for global tilt/shift modes. This initial observation is in agreement with a global MHD theory.