Thursday, October 30, 2008

New IEC Fusion Experiment Contract

FedBizOpps.gov has a solicitation for a bid for more experiments by EMC2, Doc Bussard's company now being run (at least on the experimental side) by Rick Nebel.
The Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, China Lake, CA intends to procure on an other than full and open competition basis a service to provide: 1) Research of Electrostatic "Wiffle Ball" Fusion Device. The contractor is to specifically investigate the required instrumentation to achieve spatially resolved plasma densities and spatially resolved particle energies. This requirement is sole sourced to Energy Matter Conversion Corporation, 1202 Parkway Drive, Suite A, Santa Fe, NM 87501, as the only company in the world investigating and developing this type of device.
What does that mean in terms of progress with the Bussard Fusion Reactor? It means that the experiments delineated in the Fusion Report 29 August 2008 had at least enough success to warrant further work.

Dave Price has some thoughts and more details.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, that ain't nothin', anyways. I hope this means we'll be getting news about the actual results soon.

Can anyone guess what the results of the research were based solely on the research request?

M. Simon said...

My WAG is that the results were positive and that plasma distribution in the reactor is now being looked at to refine the computer codes so good simulations can be run.

Such info is also critical for scale up.

Momma Bear said...

A bit over my head today.. but.. I do hope.. that it means that we're moving forward in the right direction for something positive for our nation.

M. Simon said...

MommaBear,

Dr. Nebel says it is a keep alive contract until a decision is made.

It is good news.

I don't expect a decision until the new administration is in place.

Anonymous said...

Sound like the Chief Engineer™ is thinking another 6-9 months are in order!