Prize competition?

[JoeStrout]

Nanos mentioned prizes in the Foresight thread. I thought that was interesting, but deserving of its own thread.

The X Prize certainly worked in fostering commercial suborbital flight. Of course it took a while, and required several benefactors — most notably Anousheh Ansari, to fund the prize, and Paul Allen, to fund the winning team.

Still, I wonder if we could get the X Prize foundation interested in a fusion prize. They should be interested in it, given how much a small workable fusion reactor would benefit space travel, and given some of their more recent interests. And it should be fairly easy to define clear-cut criteria for what constitutes a win.

It also has a similar spirit... before the X Prize came along, everyone assumed that space was Really Hard and could only be done by huge governments throwing around billions of dollars. Currently, everyone assumes that fusion is Really Hard and can only be done by huge governments throwing around billions of dollars. Quite the parallel in my eyes.

Of course, a competition wouldn't directly give anyone (including EMC2) the money they need to actually do the work... but it would certainly give the effort visibility, and may help to bring funders out of the woodwork, just as it did with Paul Allen. And who knows, maybe there are other approaches to fusion out there somewhere that could work too. I'm not picky.

So, let's brainstorm. What rules and win conditions would you suggest for a fusion competition, and why?

[Nanos]

http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?sit ... 1175025969

Has a thread about prizes, mentioning;

http://www.petitiononline.com/fusionxp/petition.html

Which currently stands at 41 Total Signatures.


And this post;

http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?sit ... 1174935892

Mentions the Hull-Willis Prize


I certainly think the X Prize is a realistic possibility.

[JoeStrout]

http://www.petitiononline.com/fusionxp/petition.html

Which currently stands at 41 Total Signatures.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. However, I think it's important to hash out the rules and conditions for such a prize carefully. The X Prize folks did a great job with the suborbital flights, but who knows whether they would do as good a job with fusion — it's probably not their area of expertise.

[Zixinus]

What rules and win conditions would you suggest for a fusion competition, and why?

Devices must be examined by a safety team, and emergency radiation leakage response crew should be on standby. We are talking about nuclear fusion here.

D-D reaction should be done, as that is relatively cheap to get, and deuterium is non-radioactive.

There would be three tiers:

First tier: like a science fair, only verification would be from a GM tube verifying radiation caused by fusion. Competitors may operate their own devices, in fact, they must.

Second tier: Unlike previously, the devices must be operated by the judges, by documentations and instructions supplied by competitors. The device is inspected by appointed nuclear engineers, preferably by three separate teams. The device is now moved into a locked room. Power supply is given. Competitors may only give advice and instructions, but they cannot give their own parts.

Third tier: independent team, preferably university or collage students, must replicate the reactor, that is, construct a working replica. Competitors may only observe, and possibly correct documentation.

Anyone completing the third tier is a winner, there are no second or third place.

Bonus is fusion product world record is beaten. Breakeven is also a bonus, but not necessity.

[Nanos]

Google has;

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org

You could imagine they might do one specifically for fusion, though fusion could be used to get to the moon at least..