Because now it’s reproducible, controllable and consistently net positive in terms of energy output.
It’s not a fluke anymore and I assume the engineering behind this is now understood well enough to develop it further and scale it up.
Fusion for the most part isn’t a physics problem it’s an engineering problem the difficulty was always in how to implement it in the real world rather than in math at ideal white paper conditions.
What information available to the public suggests this is reproducible and consistent? They do hundreds of shots every year. Why do we think that this energetic shot wasn't just a result of getting luckier this time than they did a few years ago?
> In August 2021, NIF scientists announced that they had used their high-powered laser device to achieve a record reaction that crossed a critical threshold on the path to ignition, but efforts to replicate that experiment, or shot, in the following months fell short.
A better question to ask yourself is if this isn't any different, why are the entire scientific community, the Lawrence Livermore lab, the DOE, and others so excited about it?
If these are the same thing, why didn't they make a big deal about it before? What's the material difference?
The hype machine is fully engaged, and may lead to an influx of budget, something of deadly seriousness to DoE. They have had trouble getting funding increases for this kind of weapons work when it was represented as weapons work. Pretend it's not, and people fall all over themselves to praise it.
The one where the US tends to perform well against its adversaries. True in the Civil War. True in WW1. True in WW2. True in Korea. True in Vietnam. True in the Gulf War. True in Afghanistan. True in Iraq.
And now just a smidgen of its old weapons are helping Ukraine humiliate Russia.
The US was in Afghanistan for two decades with 1,932 soldiers killed by hostile action.
Russia lost 15,000+ soldiers in Afghanistan in ten years (probably far higher given the information available and how we've seen Russia lie so dramatically about its losses in Ukraine). It's going to lose 100,000 soldiers in Ukraine in a little over a year.
The US could have held Afghanistan perpetually with 15,000-20,000 soldiers on the ground. The Taliban is a joke of a fighting force, they never competed well with the US; but they have replacement numbers, and guerrilla wars are very time consuming to fight and require massive troop deployments to actually win (you have to suffocate every corner of the enemy presence, like battling an infestation). It wasn't worth it and voters decided that, it had begun to become an unpopular nation building exercise despite the very low losses for the US.
>You think so? Ya'll lost 200,000 men to Southern fever, steel, and shot. Next time it'll be 20 million. Know your limits, yankee, and stay north of Dallas.
The south started with a treasonous surprise attack and had most of the the infantry that wasn't stationed in isolated western frontier territory or along the us-canada border, the countries war college at westpoint and many of the countries highest generals, once the north got its act together it started to burn the south to the ground. There is a reason the south still dreads the name Sherman.
You got set on fire once when you started the fight with sucker punch, and you want to try to pick fight again?
Well put. For our international observers I would note that the War of Southern Aggression that began with the treasonous attack on Fort Sumter is nearly identical to the behavior we're seeing out of similar origins today. New US states were increasingly free rather than slave states, and thus when democracy wasn't going the way of those who wanted to maintain slavery, they attacked their own government.
The terrorist attack on January 6th was the exact same root cause, democracy not going the way some want it. Leading them to embrace terrorism and violence. After the Civil War, the KKK was created, which continued the terrorism of our citizenry for decades. Yet in that case, the KKK came after the failed attempt at succession, today MAGA came before the attempt.
I describe myself as a 'pre-MAGA Republican who supports labor unions', but there's a rotten seed in American discourse today that was always there and it's largely the same people then as now.
The south would have no chance in Round 2. Most of their money and manpower actually comes from 'Yankees'. Which historically when someone is called that, it's the easy indicator to who is loyal and true to the United States, a real American patriot. Whether spoken spoken by a Brit or Johnny Reb, you definitely want to be called a Yankee as it's a badge of honor that you are loyal to your nation.
Those that are moving south are whose ancestors' allegiance was to the United States of America in the Civil War, and they still maintain that allegiance to this day in those families. They are not loyal to the defunct Confederacy and would not die for their Lost Cause.
> badge of honor that you are loyal to your nation.
When ya'll roped us into fighting the British, that declaration you published called us the "united States of America." Not the "United States of America." That's a subtle difference, but an important one.
When in the course of human events, one State does something another State considers intolerable, that State has every right to throw off the shackles of friendship and loyalty. We united our states out of a common interest, but we _never_ signed away our rights to a federal government. We started as, and remain, a republic of states.
And yeah, you may be Athens with all your philosophy and fem lit universities up north, but before you go threatening war, remember which part of the country is Sparta.
>And yeah, you may be Athens with all your philosophy and fem lit universities up north, but before you go threatening war, remember which part of the country is Sparta.
There is just so much wrong with this statement I don know where to begin
First off the Athenian league Won against the Spartans... so Ok we are agreed that the south is Sparta in this analogy.
Also you do realize that the southern culture and spartan culture are completely opposite on everything but slavery right?
Sparta had institutionalized Pederasty and post-birth abortion and encouraged homosexuality in the military none of which are thing liked by the south.
secondly Sparta went into decline as it increasingly focused on suppressing the helots (slaves) the the exclusion of all else destroying there society. as Sparta militarized itself to the point that spartan men spent most of their lives living in their barrack away from their wives dropping their birth rate.
as for "fem lit university" spartan women were some of the most independent and educated in the ancient world.
as for claim that
>State has every right to throw off the shackles of friendship and loyalty. We united our states out of a common interest, but we _never_ signed away our rights to a federal government.
you did. what you are talking about dates back to the articles of confederation which was superseded by the US constitution which was ratified by all of the states the south included, and provisions a strong federal government.
Sparta lost, by the way. Just as the Confederacy did. So I can’t argue against that. If you guys can get off disability or out of the Waffle House to fight us.
A states rights argument. We know what you wanted, to enslave mankind so you didn’t have to work. That’s what it was about. We already did war. And we successfully put an end to your treasonous ancestors, and ended your deplorable system of slavery.
I’m not sure what you folks are angry about. Losing? No slaves? Failed at treason?
When I lived in Texas I asked a man there how they could possibly celebrate the 4th of July. No one can answer that. The CSA were traitors, and all traitors receive a traitors death.
Never heard such sentiments before now from an American. That's just disgusting. Disdain for fighting for the freedom of our nation? Much of The South really is a cesspool.
The rest of this recent reply is just hilarious though. Pretending you got "tired of killing them" and surrendered? Yes, exactly. Great interpretation of an utterly and completely defeated people. I lived in Texas, they can't even defend our southern border from illegal immigration, and we're supposed to be scared? I saw nothing particularly tough or built about any of it. They're just bitter and pissed like many south of the Mason-Dixon are to this day. Hatred for real Americans (Yankees) doesn't mean a thing. Come up here and chop some wood in the winter, your balls will drop and may sprout some hair.
As noted, simply being of or from The South does not make one a traitor (nor does it make one wise or tough). Whether it's Ulysses S. Grant or the great patriot, Sam Houston, men from all parts of the US ended up in Texas.
It's everyone's choice whether you want to go the route of hiding under a woman's dress like the Jefferson Davis, or a man that history looks kindly on like Sam Houston. Some of you are built different for sure. Not very bright, and prone to treason. Apparently in both the Civil War and Revolution. That was a new one for me. Lines up well with January 6th though.
> Come up here and chop some wood in the winter, your balls will drop and may sprout some hair.
Hmm... I lived out of a tent in the Catskills for a full year. I only left because I didn't want to go through a second winter. In fact, I've lived on every coast of this country, and walked through a huge chunk of it. Where I live now, I built by hand from scratch. Cleared the land with a chainsaw, machete, and shovel. I seriously doubt you've got room to talk about balls dropping.
My point is that using the Civil War as an example of the "extreme military prowess" of the United States is kind of a joke, because that presupposes that "the United States" was the Union, and the Union lost way more men than the Confederacy did. Hundreds of thousands more. So maybe don't hold that up as a banner victory, because you did objectively lose it for the first ~3 years.
By the way, I'm a fuckin' anarchist, so don't put Jan 6 on me. I don't give a fuck who's president.
“Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.”
Russia is struggling with Ukraine and the NATO weaponry they've been gifted. 100 mile supply lines proved too much, and they failed entirely to achieve air superiority.
There's zero reason to think they'd do better against the US more directly.
Let's take a step back and remember something: If Russia and the USA had a "war" it would consist of reducing each other to the Stone Age in a couple of hours, then struggling not to starve to death
Why do you think a country that isn't capable of properly maintaining tanks is capable of maintaining nukes? I mean, ICBMs are literally rocket science with nuclear physics on top of them.
How can a country that cannot even prevent theft of electronics from their "doomsday plane" in front of the 9th of May parade keep a fleet of ICBMs operative?
In a normal year Russia has a total military budget that is smaller than the part of the US military budged allocated to nuke maintenance. How do you think they keep their nukes ready?
All this is before we start talking about corruption. There is a reason why some Russian military leaders have yachts and/or palaces and US military leaders doesn't have them.
In all fairness, maybe most of the yachts are made of missing winter uniforms (I recently saw Russians wearing Tyvek suits as "winter uniforms"). But if they steal so openly from things that was supposed to be used - why wouldn't they steal even more from things that were never meant to be used?
Before I round up, some hearsay: Some journalist that claimed he traveled throught the former Soviet Union shortly after the collapse (I have forgotten the name and I am in no position to verify it anyway) said that he saw missile silos full of rainwater. And when he asked people said it had already been like that for a few years before the collapse in 1991.
Do I think we don't have to care? Absolutely not. They might very well have a few functional nukes, maintained by enthusiastic crews, sailing around on subs somewhere I don't know (I don't follow the space to closely).
But I am not worried that they will send US back to the stone age at all.
A nuclear arsenal where only 100 of the 6,000 warheads are actually maintained and functional is still a useful one, though. Less so if 100/6,000 tanks work.
Do you remember when there was a tiny blip in production for COVID, and suddenly the shelves were empty? What do you think is going to happen if 100 nukes go off and wipe out strategic chunks of the USA?
The idea that any armed conflict between the two is guaranteed to escalate to nuclear weapons is widespread, but certainly not proven. A US invasion of Russia seems likely to result in nuclear war, but an engagement between conventional forces over a third-party nation like Ukraine seems quite unlikely to. Neither side is suicidal at the leadership level.
US and Russian aviators directly engaged in Vietnam without nuclear holocaust.
If Putin had a big red button that ran wirelessly and automatically, I'd be concerned.
Human beings have to actually implement the order. I think a first-strike order on the US without a serious and immediate existential threat to the Russian state and people winds up with someone offing him with their sidearm.
The Russians have plenty of precedent for this (both offing the leadership, and more generally "oops, he fell out of a window" as a solution), and we've a number of historical examples of lower-level folks going "I don't wanna" in false-alarm situations, like Stanislav Petrov.
I agree, a first strike order is very unlikely.
But what if he fires off a nuke over Ukraine? Maybe in a way that it's not 100% clear whether it's a Russian nuke, or a power plant blowing up, or somebody else?
Or he orders to detonate a bomb over the open sea to demonstrate the capability?
But certainly, if I would be Putin, I'd be nervous drinking tea, or walking close to a window. That doesn't make him more stable though.
You can't make a nuke look like a power plant explosion; they're simply too different. No nuclear power station can explode in that fashion.
A bomb over the ocean wouldn't demonstrate any new capacity, and would be seen as the bluff it would almost certainly be.
A nuke on Ukranian soil would further open the floodgates of Western aid, expand sanctions, and push more nations firmly into the EU/NATO fold as Finland and Sweden already have been.
A nuke on Ukrainian soil also has the problem of the prevailing wind direction being from west to east. Detonating a nuke on Ukraine looks a lot like detonating a (smaller) dirty bomb on Russia.
Let's check our assumptions. The bulletin of atomic scientists first published in 2017 [0] that they felt the modernized US nuclear arsenal is likely sufficient to execute a devastatingly successful first-strike against the Russian arsenal and nuclear command and control, because the new 'super-fuze' in the submarine arsenal significantly upgrades the hard-target kill capability of the warheads. The risk they communicate in this article is that Russia will misinterpret a false positive from their early warning system (which offers only half the warning time of the US') and launch a "retaliatory" strike against the US on a false alarm, because they do not expect to have that capability after a US strike. The modernization program has continued since 2017 and extended to the minuteman arsenal.
>the United States would be able to target huge portions of its nuclear force against non-hardened targets, the destruction of which would be crucial to a “successful” first strike...The garrisons and their support facilities would probably be destroyed quickly, and some of the dispersed road-mobile launchers would also be quickly destroyed as they were in the process of dispersing. To destroy or expose the remaining launchers...Just 125 US Minuteman III warheads could set fire to some 8,000 square miles of forest area where the road-mobile missiles are most likely to be deployed. This would be the equivalent of a circular area with a diameter of 100 miles.
>Many of the nearly 300 remaining deployed W76 warheads could be used to attack all command posts associated with Russian ICBMs.
Probably the warfare that involved invading and occupying 2 states thousands of miles away for 20 years with complete air dominance and suffering under 10,000 KIA. Russia has suffered 20,000 deaths in under a year on its boarder.
> The service has not fully delivered on, or explained what, that unmanned concept or capability would look like. Defense experts told Military.com prior to the rollout that it is unlikely we’d see a fully autonomous bomber anywhere in the near future.
They also canceled the drone wingman:
> In 2021, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall publicly discussed the idea of having a drone counterpart to the B-21 that would essentially act as a wingman alongside the bomber. But Kendall later backtracked, telling Breaking Defense in July that the concept was not as “cost-effective” and “less attractive” than previously thought.
Allegedly ignition was achieved a year ago. How is this different?