Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) Colloquium

Pluto and its five known moons have been transformed from mysterious, barely resolved or unresolved points of light, only dimly viewed from very far away, to astonishing worlds of unimagined complexity by the recent visit of the small interplanetary probe called New Horizons. Pluto, with its icy plains, mountains, flowing glaciers, and hazy atmosphere, and Charon, only half as large but dramatically different, are revealed in amazing detail by the instruments on New Horizons. This talk will present the two imaging instruments on New Fusion rocket engines could enable a rapid response capability for deflecting an incoming comet, to prevent its impact on the planet Earth, in defense of our population, infrastructure, and civilization. The problem with long period comets is that they basically arrive to the inner solar system unannounced. If one were on a collision course with Earth, we would only have 6-18 months of warning. To make a long-distance deflection of the comet, with momentum change delivered by ablation caused by radiation from a stand-off nuclear explosive, you need a fly-by interceptor rocket with 20-40x the performance of our best existing chemical rockets. A fusion rocket engine could enable the mission. Interestingly, the performance metrics and design constraints for a fusion rockets are quite different than for our usual Demo fusion reactor. Any non-PPPL people interested in attending should see this site for more information: http://www.pppl.gov/about/visiting-pppl.