IS IT WORTH IT?

Much of the indirect drive technology is still classified, and I don't have the numbers anyway. But let's assume the output is fifteen times more powerful than that of the Nova, or about one megajoule. That is the energy put out by Seabrook (yes! it has gone on line at full power, as the New York Times announced in small print somewhere close to the truss ads) in less than one second; it is the energy that will keep a domestic clothes dryer (5 kW) run-ning for almost 56 hours. And for that you explode an atom bomb?

No, not for that. As mentioned before, some of the Nova's op-timum parameters are unknown, as are some fundamental parameters of inertial fusion that are needed to overcome certain instabilities that arise in direct-drive inertial fusion. These are parameters that are needed to construct the Precision Nova; they can be obtained from indirect drive experiments, and my guess is that at this time most of them have already been revealed that way.

And is the Precision Nova worth it? Decidedly yes. The main application of fusion at present and into the distant future is a very noble one: nuclear weapons for the defense of freedom. Like all weapons in a world of developing technology, they need to be tested continually, if the NRDC and the others of Chamberlain's children get away with an underground test ban by frightening and deluding a brainwashed public, inertial fusion can still test the main components of the weapons that will save America from Lithuania's fate.

And suppose the USSR does break up into a number of im-potent Luxemburgs around the Duchy of Muscovy, as I fervently hope it will, the world is still full of Dengs, Pol Pots, Khaddafis, Husseins and Arafats. In time they will learn to build deliverable missiles with nuclear (or biological and chemical) warheads. If SDI does not keep them out, who will? Tawana Brawley and Patricia Schroeder?

But I am not one of them. Fusion is important for defense;for civilian energy production it is not needed. There is plenty of fission energy available for the asking: the earth's rivers deposit enough uranium in the sea to keep the world's present electric power con-sumption going well after the sun has used up its fuel and stops shining some 5 billion years hence. It is safer than any other method of generating electricity and its wastes are far easier and more healthfully disposed of than those of fossil fuels; the only obstacle to its widespread use is the horror brainwash put out by the sham-environmentalists.

They feign enthusiasm for fusion energy only because for them it has one supreme virtue: it is not available. If it does become avail-able they will smear it with dozens of false arguments endlessly repeated by the media, just as it happened with fission, for the simple truth is they don't want any industrial energy. One of their arguments that will not be false is that fusion produces neutron radiation. Though semantically it is not counted as "radioactivity," neutron radiation in sufficient intensity is just as deadly as normal radioactivity, and a good deal more penetrating: a 12 inch concrete wall will absorb from 90% to 95% of the incident gamma rays, but only up to 60% to 80% of neutrons. There are other points, but who am I to do the ecofreaks' work for them decades ahead of the time?