NASA needs to refocus its priorities

[Az]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html

Gerald Kulcinski, director of the University of Wisconsin's Fusion Technology Institute, is already halfway there. Kulcinski is in charge of an "inertial electrostatic confinement device," an experimental low-power reactor that has successfully performed continuous deuterium-helium-3 fusion - a process that produces less waste than the standard deuterium-tritium fusion reaction.

a link showing the importance of such a reaction:

http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html

[Dauphin]

From the same article.

The next step, pure helium-3 fusion (3He-3He) is a long way off,

[Az]

but the He-3+D reaction is working!

[Dauphin]

It looks good, but something doesn't quite feel right to me. Your source doesn't say anything about the net gains that they are making. The temperatures needed for D-He3 reactions is a lot higher than for DT, so I can't see why it is working so much better. Pulsed reactions of DT have been made and have done better than break even in some cases.

If this is the case that it is economically viable, I can see why shipping in He-3 would be a good idea. Although if it is not done soon, DT reactions will be improved enough to produce energy and also be making enough He3 that it won't be necessary to ship the stuff in.