This is the interior of an invention that could change civilization as we know it: A compact fusion reactor developed by Skunk Works, the stealthy experimental technology division of Lockheed Martin. It is the size of a jet engine, power airplanes, spaceships, and cities—and they say it will be operative in only 10 years.
Aviation Week had exclusive access to their secret laboratories and talked to Dr. Thomas McGuire, the leader of Skunk Work's Revolutionary Technology division. And revolutionary it is, indeed: Instead of using the same design that everyone else is using—the Soviet-derived tokamak, a torus in which magnetic fields confine the fusion reaction with a huge energy cost and thus little energy production capabilities—Skunk Works' Compact Fusion Reactor has a radically different approach to anything people have tried before.
A small reactor that can power a town of 80,000 homes? This will solve the not only the pollution problem, it will solve the scarcity. Put several of these in a dispersed scenario, and tornadoes and storms can't take out so many houses, there would be redundancy. Oil would drop tremendously and terrorist countries would be out of funding.
Capitalism, the expression of free ideas and the ability for anyone to take those ideas and bring them to fruition for (dare I say it?) profit produces wonders the world has never seen.
Hippies and leftists, please stay out of the way.
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