OA
Hi TML world wide,
after reading things for a few months I thought it's about time
I typed something ... so .....
In 3113 Paul Dale writes :
>According to our locl newspaper, somebody in Europe managed to
>maintain a (hot) fusion reaction for a couple of seconds (? not
>exactly sure how long it really was). If we get fusion we would
>also get to TL9.
>
>Pauli
The Joint European Tourus (JET) Labs nr Didcot, England, did
achieve fusion for about 2 seconds generating about 2.5 MWatts,
from an input energy of about 10 times that !
This may not sound like much - but it is an improvement on past efforts.
However, before you all start leaping up and down with glee expecting
fusion generators to be just around the corner, you should know that
the next phase in the testing is the best part of *TWO YEARS* away
when about twice as much tritium (3g) will be used to trigger the reaction,
and that it's estimated that a sustained reaction of at least 30 minutes
will be required to make fusion practical :-(
.... oh well, one day ... :-)
Secondly re. all this talk of Gyro-stabilisation of weapons (3089 etc..),
Canon (the camera people) have been developing a 300mm f2.8 lens that
features an anti-camera shake feature controled by ultra-sonic motors (USM)
that detects movement of the lens when in use and moves the lens elements
to compensate.
So what has this to do with guns ?
Extrapolate from the small beginings Canon are making to more powerful
TL10+ USMs. Slap those on a gun (even a laser) along with a controlling
computer and while they don't do anything for recoil they could be
*very* good at damping unwanted weapon movement.
And while on the subject of weapons - will caseless ammo' help cut down
the need for gyro-stablisers ?
CU on the net
- --
Andy
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