Robert W. Bussard (August 11, 1928 – October 6, 2007) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

who worked primarily in

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifest ...

energy research. He was the recipient of the Schreiber-Spence Achievement Award for STAIF-2004. He was also a fellow of the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is an independent non-governmental organization established in Stockholm ( Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán, and recognized by the United Nations in 1996. The IAA has electe ...

and held a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Kiwi (Rover-A)

In June 1955 Bussard moved to Los Alamos and joined the Nuclear Propulsion Division's

Project Rover Project Rover was a United States project to develop a nuclear-thermal rocket that ran from 1955 to 1973 at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL). It began as a United States Air Force project to develop a nuclear-powered upper stage for ...

designing

nuclear thermal rocket A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) is a type of thermal rocket where the heat from a nuclear reaction, often nuclear fission, replaces the chemical energy of the propellants in a chemical rocket. In an NTR, a working fluid, usually liquid hydro ...

engines.Bussard, Robert. "Nuclear Rocketry - The First Bright Hopes", Astronautics, Vol. 7, No. 12, Dec. 1962, pp. 32–35 Bussard and R.D. DeLauer wrote two important monographs on nuclear propulsion, ''Nuclear Rocket Propulsion'' and ''Fundamentals of Nuclear Flight''.

Bussard ramjet

In 1960, Bussard conceived of the

Bussard ramjet The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Poul Anderson's novel '' Tau Zero'', Larry Niven in his ''Known Space'' series of books, Vernor Vinge in h ...

, an interstellar

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

drive powered by

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...

fusion using hydrogen collected with a

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

from the interstellar gas. Due to the presence of high-energy particles throughout space, much of the interstellar hydrogen exists in an

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...

ized state (H II regions) that can be manipulated by

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particle ...

electric field An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field fo ...

s. Bussard proposed to "scoop" up ionized hydrogen and funnel it into a fusion reactor, using the exhaust from the reactor as a rocket engine. It appears the energy gain in the reactor must be extremely high for the ramjet to work at all; any hydrogen picked up by the scoop must be sped up to the same speed as the ship in order to provide thrust, and the energy required to do so increases with the ship's speed. Hydrogen itself does not fuse very well (unlike deuterium, which is rare in the interstellar medium), and so cannot be used directly to produce energy, a fact which accounts for the billion-year scale of stellar lifetimes. This problem was solved, in principle, according to Bussard by use of the stellar

CNO cycle The CNO cycle (for carbon–nitrogen–oxygen; sometimes called Bethe–Weizsäcker cycle after Hans Albrecht Bethe and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker) is one of the two known sets of fusion reactions by which stars convert hydrogen to helium, ...

in which carbon is used as a catalyst to burn hydrogen via the strong nuclear reaction.

In science fiction

Bussard Ramjets are common plot devices in science fiction.

Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are ''Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, ''The Mote in God's Eye'' ...

uses them in his

Known Space Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off ''Man-Kzin Wars'' anthologies. The Internet Spe ...

setting to propel interstellar flight. Following a standard hi-tech faster/cheaper/better learning curve, he started with robot probes during the early stages of interstellar colonization and eventually plotted them as affordable to wealthy individuals relocating their families off a too-crowded Earth (in "The Ethics of Madness"). Niven also employed Bussard Ramjets as the propulsion / stabilizing engine of the

Ringworld ''Ringworld'' is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. ''Ringworld'' tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, a ...

(four novels), which were also set in Known Space. In the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' universe, a variation called the ''Bussard Hydrogen Collector'' or ''Bussard Ramscoop'' appears as part of the

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...

antimatter In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding particles in "ordinary" matter. Antimatter occurs in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioac ...

propulsion system that allows

Starfleet Starfleet is a fictional organization in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Within this fictional universe, Starfleet is a uniformed space force maintained by the United Federation of Planets ("the Federation") as the principal means for conduc ...

ships to travel faster than the speed of light. The ramscoops attach to the front of the ''warp nacelles'', and when the ship's internal supply of deuterium runs low, they collect interstellar hydrogen and convert it to deuterium and anti-deuterium for use as the primary fuel in a starship's ''

warp drive A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably ''Star Trek'', and a subject of ongoing physics research. The general concept of "warp drive" was i ...

''.

Atomic Energy Commission

In the early 1970s Bussard became Assistant Director under Director Robert Hirsch at the Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division of what was then known as the Atomic Energy Commission. They founded the mainline fusion program for the United States: the

Tokamak A tokamak (; russian: токамáк; otk, 𐱃𐰸𐰢𐰴, Toḳamaḳ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being d ...

. In June 1995, Bussard claimed in a letter to all fusion laboratories, as well as to key members of the US Congress, that he and the other founders of the program supported the Tokamak not out of conviction that it was the best technical approach but rather as a vehicle for generating political support, thereby allowing them to pursue "all the hopeful new things the mainline labs would not try". In a 1998

Analog magazine ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Cl ...

article, fellow fusion researcher

Tom Ligon Thomas Ligon (born September 10, 1940) is an actor of Cajun ancestry. He appeared in the films '' Paint Your Wagon'', ''Jump'', and ''Bang the Drum Slowly'' (in which he also sang the title song) as well as the television series ''The Young and ...

described an easily built demonstration fusor system along with some of Bussard's ideas for fusion reactors and incredibly powerful

spacecraft propulsion Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. In-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with space launch or atmospheric e ...

systems, with which spacecraft could swiftly move throughout the solar system.

The Polywell

Bussard worked on a promising new type of

inertial electrostatic confinement Inertial electrostatic confinement, or IEC, is a class of fusion power devices that use electric fields to confine the plasma rather than the more common approach using magnetic fields found in magnetic fusion energy (MFE) designs. Most IEC d ...

(IEC) fusor, called the

Polywell The polywell is a proposed design for a fusion reactor using an electric field to heat ions to fusion conditions. The design is related to the fusor, the high beta fusion reactor, the magnetic mirror, and the biconic cusp. A set of electromagn ...

, that has a magnetically shielded grid (MaGrid). He founded Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation, Inc. (EMC2) in 1985 to validate his theory, and tested several (15) experimental devices from 1994 through 2006. The U.S. Navy contract funding that supported the work expired while experiments were still small. However, the final tests of the last device, WB-6, reputedly solved the last remaining physics problem just as the funding expired and the EMC2 labs had to be shut down. Further funding was eventually found, the work continued and the WB-7 prototype was constructed and tested, and the research is ongoing.

Appeal for funding

During 2006 and 2007, Bussard sought the large-scale funding necessary to design and construct a full-scale Polywell fusion power plant. His fusor design is feasible enough, he asserted, to render unnecessary the construction of larger and larger test models still too small to achieve

break-even Break-even (or break even), often abbreviated as B/E in finance, (sometimes called point of equilibrium) is the point of balance making neither a profit nor a loss. Any number below the break-even point constitutes a loss while any number above i ...

. Also, the scaling of power with size goes as the seventh power of the machine radius, while the gain scales as the fifth power, so there is little incentive to build half-scale systems; one might as well build the real thing. On March 29, 2006, Bussard claimed on the fusor.net internet forum that EMC² had developed an

fusion process that was 100,000 times more efficient than previous designs, but that the US Navy budget line item that supported the work was zero-funded in FY2006. Bussard provided more details of his breakthrough and the circumstances surrounding the end of his Navy funding in a letter to the ''James Randi Educational Foundation'' internet forum on June 23. From October 2, 2006, to October 6, 2006, Bussard presented an informal overview of the previous decade of his work at the 57th International Astronautical Congress. This was the first publication of this work in 11 years, as the U.S. Navy had put an embargo on publications of the research, in 1994. Bussard presented further details of his IEC fusion research at a Google Tech Talk on November 9, 2006, of which a video was widely circulated. Bussard presented more of his thoughts on the potential world impact of fusion power at a

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

Tech Talk on April 10, 2007. (The video is only available internally for Yahoo employees.) He also spoke on the internet talk radio show ''The Space Show'', Broadcast 709, on May 7, 2007. He founded a non-profit organization to solicit tax-deductible donations to restart the work in 2007, EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation.

Quotes

"Thus, we have the ability to do away with oil (and other fossil fuels) but it will take 4–6 years and

ca. CA or ca may refer to: Businesses and organizations Companies * Air China (IATA airline code CA) * CA Technologies, a U.S. software company * Cayman Airways, a Cayman Islands airline * Channel America, a defunct U.S. television network * Classi ...

$100–200M to build the full-scale plant and demonstrate it." "Somebody will build it; and when it's built, it will work; and when it works people will begin to use it, and it will begin to displace all other forms of energy."

Death

Bussard died from

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...

on October 6, 2007, at age 79.

References

External links

Inertial-Electrodynamic Fusion (IEF) Device - Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2)

Bussard's website, asking for donations to fund further research

Economic Impact of Cheap Fusion - 3 minutes of excerpts from Bussard's Google Tech Talk Video

"Robert Bussard Interview," by K.C. Cole, Omni Magazine, January 1981

Chapter 7 (The Entrepreneurs) from "The Man-Made Sun — The Quest for Fusion Power," by Thomas A. Heppenheimer, 1984

Robert Bussard on IEC Fusion Power & The Polywell Reactor
Transcript of Bussard Polywell Interview, May 10, 2007
Robert Bussard on Fusion Drives, NERVA & the Bussard Ramjet
Transcript of Bussard Space Propulsion Interview, May 10, 2007
Latest Fusion developments (WB-7 - June 2008) based on the work of Dr. Robert Bussard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bussard, Robert W. American nuclear physicists Deaths from cancer in the United States Nuclear fusion 1928 births 2007 deaths Deaths from multiple myeloma