I have just seen test and talks about the use of boron, but nothing about other gases as stated here:

http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/milestone_update/

” As we shift to heavier atomic weight we will need to adjust the length of the electrodes, the initial fill pressure, shot timing, etc. to maintain optimum plasmoid conditions.  We will do this by mixing in helium (atomic weight 4) and nitrogen (atomic weight 14) to add weight without adding the complexity of nuclear reactions.”

What happened?

Thanks for pointing that out.

Nothing’s being ignored.  Things move one step at a time, though. 

Perhaps to clarify things we can merge the milestones article with the “how will we get there from here” article and keep the actual dates off until the objective is achieved. 

Add a tracking “YOU ARE HERE IN THE EXPERIMENT” marker.  Maybe we can make this a sidebar widget.

Anyone with sidebar widget experience, feel free to jump in and design this.

Also, no mention of milestone 4 and 5, and things seems to get confusing, because generally either projects follow linearly or in parallel. It seems these 2 steps were also ignored and preparations for milestone 6 and 7 is just everything that is being done right now.

MTd2 - 01 September 2010 07:50 PM

Also, no mention of milestone 4 and 5, and things seems to get confusing, because generally either projects follow linearly or in parallel. It seems these 2 steps were also ignored and preparations for milestone 6 and 7 is just everything that is being done right now.

I thought that this was sort of an intermission period with Lerner-hakase in Greece and that various related tasks were being performed in the meantime as schedules and funding allowed?

The “intermission period” is over, and the team is hard at work again.  Milestones 4 & 5 will be met on the way to 6 & 7.  The next report will be out fairly soon which will give more details on the recent progress, and where that puts us in relation to the milestones.

Well, with a short funding, shouldn’t all steps be followed closely? It would increase the change of getting more funding to show progress rather than doing everything at the same time and risking losing all…

MTd2 - 01 September 2010 09:01 PM

Well, with a short funding, shouldn’t all steps be followed closely?

I’m just guessing here, but I imagine the experts in this area know what they’re doing and are doing it as quickly as possible.

I figure the policy is “Maximum results from minimum expenditure,” which is the reverse of ITER. 

Well, the point here is not falling bellow minimum…

Research takes as long as it takes—these things cannot always be planned out in advance.

Indeed - reminds me of a T-shirt I’ve got with a quote from Einstein…. “If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research, would it?”

I didn’t mean minimum rate of attaining milestones, but of getting the minimal funding. By the way, I also mean the contrary, of trying to do things out of its natural schedule to rush things and so making the group look bad to who is investing. Too fast, and not accomplish nothing, jumping milestones. But I guess this fear of mine is gone, because there will be updates soon.