‘A Star in a Bottle’

Posted on March 11, 2014 by KG

‘Years from now—maybe in a decade, maybe sooner—if all goes according to plan, the most complex machine ever built will be switched on in an Alpine forest in the South of France. The machine, called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, will stand a hundred feet tall, and it will weigh twenty-three thousand tons—more than twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
….For the machine’s creators, this process—sparking and controlling a self-sustaining synthetic star—will be the culmination of decades of preparation, billions of dollars’ worth of investment, and immeasurable ingenuity, misdirection, recalibration, infighting, heartache, and ridicule. Few engineering feats can compare, in scale, in technical complexity, in ambition or hubris…’

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8 Responses to ‘A Star in a Bottle’

  1. William Stout says:
    March 11, 2014 at 09:26

    And let us hope that it is well designed. Otherwise, it will be like a 250 megaton nuke going off if it worst cases.

  2. Ronbo says:
    March 11, 2014 at 12:10

    It sounds good on paper, but hell’s bells, communism sounds good on paper :!: :mrgreen: but I wouldn’t stop oil, coal and natural gas production until the plants are all built and ready to go online. :cool:

    Speaking of energy production, there is the theory that before the last Ice Age melted down and caused the oceans to rise, a world wide civilization, that some call Atlantis, existed and the pyramids we find all over the world its power plants.

    http://www.ancient-world-mysteries.com/tesla.html

    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
    – Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

  3. Brown says:
    March 11, 2014 at 18:17

    Its a bit scary that the race that created Citroens have made this. The question is will it blow up before it breaks down?