roberts@CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV (John Roberts) (04/01/89)
A few years ago, somebody came here and gave a talk on muon-catalyzed
room temperature fusion. One of the things that came out was that it
really is a room temperature phenomenon. If the temperature rises above
a certain low value, it stops working. This is good in the sense that it
can not be used directly as a fusion bomb, but poses a problem for power
collection. The proposed method was to use heat engines that operate on
a low temperature differential, such as the Stirling engine. While the
mechanism for the electrolytic fusion is not known or has not been disclosed,
it may similarly be limited to moderate temperatures. If this is the case,
perhaps the best hope for a space drive is an electric generator driving
an ion engine. Even with the required hardware and shielding this could
be attractive for long-term, low-thrust missions, but you can forget all
about 1G drives.
Of course, the phenomenon must first be verified by duplication, and its
parameters established.
John Roberts
roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov