Robert W. Bussard facts for kids

Robert W. Bussard (born August 11, 1928 – died October 6, 2007) was an American physicist. He mainly worked on nuclear fusion energy research. He received an award called the Schreiber-Spence Achievement Award in 2004. He was also a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Designing Nuclear Rockets

In 1955, Robert Bussard moved to Los Alamos. He joined a team working on Project Rover. This project was all about designing engines for nuclear thermal rockets. These rockets would use nuclear power to travel through space. Bussard and R.D. DeLauer wrote two important books about nuclear rockets: Nuclear Rocket Propulsion and Fundamentals of Nuclear Flight.

The Bussard Ramjet Idea

In 1960, Bussard came up with a big idea called the Bussard ramjet. This was a concept for a spaceship engine that could travel between stars. It would be powered by hydrogen fusion. The idea was to collect hydrogen from the space between stars using a giant magnetic field.

Space is full of tiny particles, and much of the hydrogen there is ionized. This means it has an electric charge and can be moved by magnetic or electric fields. Bussard suggested that a spaceship could "scoop" up this charged hydrogen. Then, it would funnel the hydrogen into a fusion reactor. The hot gas coming out of the reactor would push the spaceship forward, like a rocket.

One challenge was that regular hydrogen does not fuse easily. This is why stars take billions of years to burn their fuel. Bussard thought this problem could be solved by using something called the CNO cycle. In this process, carbon acts like a helper to make hydrogen fuse much faster.

Bussard Ramjets in Stories

Bussard Ramjets are very popular in science fiction books and movies.

The author Larry Niven used them in his Known Space stories. These ramjets helped spaceships travel between stars. At first, they were used for robot probes. Later, they became affordable for people who wanted to move their families to new planets. Niven also used Bussard Ramjets to power the giant Ringworld in his novels.

In the Star Trek universe, there's a similar device called the Bussard Hydrogen Collector or Bussard Ramscoop. These collectors are part of the engine system that lets Starfleet ships travel faster than light. They are located on the front of the warp nacelles. When a ship runs low on its special fuel, the ramscoops collect hydrogen from space. This hydrogen is then changed into fuel for the ship's warp drive.

Working with Atomic Energy

In the early 1970s, Bussard became an Assistant Director at the Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division. This was part of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. He and Director Robert Hirsch started the main fusion program for the United States. This program focused on a device called the Tokamak.

In 1995, Bussard wrote a letter saying that he and others supported the Tokamak. But he said it was not because they thought it was the best way to make fusion energy. Instead, they used it to get political support and funding. This allowed them to try "all the hopeful new things" that big labs might not try otherwise.

In 1998, a fellow fusion researcher named Tom Ligon wrote an article in Analog magazine. He described a simple fusion system and some of Bussard's ideas. These ideas included powerful spacecraft propulsion systems that could move spaceships quickly through the solar system.

The Polywell Device

Bussard worked on a new kind of fusion device called the Polywell. It uses a special magnetic shield. In 1985, he started a company called Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation, Inc. (EMC2). He wanted to test his ideas. From 1994 to 2006, he tested 15 experimental devices.

His work was supported by funding from the U.S. Navy. However, this funding ended while the experiments were still small. The very last tests of his device, called WB-6, seemed to solve the final physics problem. But the funding ran out, and the EMC2 labs had to close.

Later, new funding was found. The work continued, and a new prototype called WB-7 was built and tested. This research is still going on today.

Asking for More Funding

In 2006 and 2007, Bussard tried to get a lot of money to build a full-size Polywell fusion power plant. He believed his design was good enough that they didn't need to build many small test models. He said that the power of the machine grows very quickly with its size. So, it made more sense to build the real thing right away.

On March 29, 2006, Bussard announced online that EMC² had made a fusion process that was 100,000 times more efficient than older designs. But he also said that the U.S. Navy had stopped funding this work in 2006.

Bussard shared more details about his discovery and why the Navy funding ended in a letter to an online forum on June 23.

From October 2 to October 6, 2006, Bussard gave a presentation about his work at a big international meeting. This was the first time his research had been shared publicly in 11 years. The U.S. Navy had stopped him from publishing his research since 1994.

Bussard gave more details about his fusion research at a Google Tech Talk on November 9, 2006. A video of this talk was shared widely.

He also talked about how fusion power could change the world at a Yahoo! Tech Talk on April 10, 2007. He spoke on an internet radio show called The Space Show on May 7, 2007.

In 2007, he started a non-profit group called EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation. He hoped to get donations to restart his work.

Robert Bussard's Vision

Robert Bussard believed that fusion energy could replace oil and other fossil fuels. He said it would take about 4 to 6 years and around $100 to $200 million to build a full-scale fusion power plant and show that it works.

He was confident that "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."

Later Life

Robert Bussard passed away from a type of cancer called multiple myeloma on October 6, 2007. He was 79 years old.

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