m. c. de marco: To invent new life and new civilizations...

Via a mailing list: The Santa Fe New Mexican’s obituary for Robert Bussard (father of the Bussard Ramjet), who passed away this October, focuses on his work with the Tokamak and Polywell:

Bussard’s idea is to convert hydrogen and boron, a widely available material, directly into electricity, producing helium as the only waste product.

Two years ago, just as his federal funding was running out, Bussard believed he had achieved a “breakthrough.”

According to Bussard, data collected during experiments in the fall of 2005 by scientists from his company, Energy Matter Conversion Corp. (EMC2), suggest they had developed a fusion process that was 100,000 times more efficient than previous designs.

The device they were using was the latest version of the Polywell, conceived in 1983 by Bussard and tested with funding from the U.S. Navy.