Orbiting fusion reactors (was: Mirrors versus diffuse reflection)

diffuse reflection)

[snikt]
> The neutron flux physically erodes all known materials rather quickly.
>

I guess that an orbiting mass driver-powered fusion reactor (OMDPFR) can be
made big enough to allow *hydrogen* fusion, instead of deuterium-tritium or
any other combination that generates neutrons. You would have just a gamma
ray source.

Still, this container erosion sounds rather strange. Conventional fission
reactors, using uranium and plutonium, also generates lots of neutrons. So,
why don't they suffer the same problem of neutron erosion?

> Debris from the container drifts into the plasma cloud causing it to
> instantly collapse.
>

The proposed OMDPFR would not use plasma clouds to get fusion. It would
*generate* a plasma cloud (actually, a small-scale short wave) when fusing
hydrogen pellets by colliding them. Those pulsed shockwaves would likely
*compress* the inner walls of the collision chamber and keep any debris
smashed against it.

Perhaps I did not make the concept quite clear yet. An OMDPFR would work in
a way analogous to laser-powered fusion, fusing a droplet of hydrogen at the
center of a hollow spherical reaction core. However, the enormous
compression and temperature needed to trigger fusion would be accomplished
not by lasers (which represent, by the way, a vast waste of energy), but by
accelerating an colliding the droplets against each other at enormous
speeds.

[snikt]
Lucio Coelho