Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast The Future of Fusion Energy with Fatima Ebrahimi About this episode Is fusion the future of energy and space travel? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Paul Mecurio explore the cutting-edge science of plasma physics and fusion energy with Fatima Ebrahimi, a physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Paul, finally catching up with what fusion is doing here on Earth.
0:04 Paul Mecurio? What it's doing on Earth and where we're gonna be.
0:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because I know what it's doing in the universe. The sun is plasma and doing fusion. The whole universe is this. How about on Earth's surface? We need it here, we need it now.
0:14 Paul Mecurio? And we need it locally.
0:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
0:16 Paul Mecurio? And save money.
0:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And when is it gonna happen?
0:21 Paul Mecurio? That's gonna be something we're gonna find out.
0:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I got with me Paul Mecurio. Paul!
0:47 Paul Mecurio? What's up?
0:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Co-hosting today.
0:48 Paul Mecurio? Good to see you, my friend.
0:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Good to see you, man.
0:50 Paul Mecurio? It's always fun.
0:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Love you. And you always doing interesting stuff.
0:54 Paul Mecurio? I'm trying.
0:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, you got your own, like, off-Broadway show?
0:57 Paul Mecurio? Yeah, that went to the, and then became Broadway, and then we, now we're taking it out around the country.
1:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I was gonna ask you, when's it gonna get on Broadway?
1:03 Paul Mecurio? Well, we're gonna, no, we're coming back to it.
1:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm tired of seeing you in the streets off-Broadway.
1:06 Paul Mecurio? We ran into each other with nine people across from the lake.
1:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Off-Broadway.
1:11 Paul Mecurio? They loved it, yeah. Called Permission to Speak, and it's directed by Frank Oz.
1:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We love Frank Oz.
1:16 Paul Mecurio? Yeah, he's the best. And we, it involves people telling stories and connecting people through shared stories.
1:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're interacting with the audience?
1:22 Paul Mecurio? Yes.
1:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, cool.
1:22 Paul Mecurio? Bringing them on stage, telling my own stories. We were just in Florida with it. We're gonna be in Rhode Island. And people can go to paulmacurio.com to see where we're gonna be.
1:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mecurio.
1:30 Paul Mecurio? Mecurio.
1:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? M-E-C-U-R-I-O. Love you, love it, love it. So, you know what we got today? The day has to arrive in all of our lives when you want to be in arms' reach of a fusion expert.
1:43 Paul Mecurio? Well, I'm glad I could be here.
1:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You could be.
1:45 Paul Mecurio? Oh, her, I'm sorry.
1:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fatima Abraheemi. Did I pronounce that correctly? Fatima?
1:52 Speaker 02 Almost.
1:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Abrahami.
1:58 Speaker 02 Yes, Fatima Abrahami.
1:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, see, I got that, the last one. Okay. I love it. You're, you, you have a PhD in plasma physics. That's a whole thing. Not just physics.
2:08 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plasma. You gotta say plasma.
2:11 Paul Mecurio? Plasma.
2:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plasma.
2:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You heard me. I said it right. And you're a research scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. PPPL. Out there in, in Princeton, New Jersey.
2:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Up Route 1, I think.
2:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
2:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:29 Speaker 02 You should come.
2:31 Paul Mecurio? There's a fabulous Home Depot right there. Big fan.
2:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, this is, uh, people have heard fusion, they've heard the word, and they've heard the word plasma, and most people think blood plasma. This is a completely different plasma. Right? Blood plasma is like what's left over in the, your body.
2:52 Paul Mecurio? Body, right.
2:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I mean, after you take out the red blood cells.
2:55 Paul Mecurio? Right, exactly.
2:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah. So this is not that at all.
2:57 Paul Mecurio? Right.
2:57 Speaker 02 No, not that at all.
2:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let's start off, get the vocabulary on the table. What is a plasma?
3:03 Speaker 02 So plasma is the fourth state of matter, and it's 99% of observable universe is plasma.
3:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it's really the first state of matter?
3:15 Speaker 02 Exactly.
3:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You want to think of it that way?
3:17 Paul Mecurio? And it's very unstable, right? It's unstable.
3:19 Speaker 02 Uh, no, not necessarily. It could be.
3:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Just because you wrote notes doesn't mean you're correct, okay? Continue, Fatima.
3:29 Speaker 02 It's actually, uh, we are all floating in a plasma state in our universe. So, so, and if you want to see, uh, what is actually plasma is, is when, you know, electrons are kind of freely moving and charged particles, negative charged particles, ions, positive charged particles. It's basically a soup of, you know, charged particles is plasma is.
3:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so why is it that we always, in physics, we see plasma? Join together with the word fusion. Why are they relevant to each other?
4:09 Speaker 02 Because our sun that I create and that actually produces a lot of energy is through fusion energy. And that's a is in a plasma state.
4:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So plasma, in order to get a plasma, it has to be very hot.
4:26 Speaker 02 Yes.
4:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, nothing is a cold plasma, is there?
4:29 Speaker 02 Yes, actually, for the case of fusion, it has to be hundred million degrees to actually achieve fusion. But plasmas, you know, they could have variety of temperature, could be low temperature plasma.
4:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, then you're not gonna, then you're not gonna have fusion.
4:46 Speaker 02 Exactly.
4:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
4:47 Speaker 02 Plasmas could also be lightening strikes, those that's plasma.
4:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I remember this, this, this not a toy, this thing you could buy. Remember Spencer Gifts? Yeah. Anyone older than seventy will remember Spencer Gifts. Lava lamps? Yeah, lava lamps, one of them was this ball. It had this sort of glowing thing in it. And you put your hand on the ball and it would react to your hand touching the surface.
5:13 Speaker 02 Exactly, because it's charged particles, you know, all of these, you know, the plasma kind of response.
5:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It makes it glow.
5:19 Speaker 02 Exactly, glow, because particles could also can de-excite and kind of produce photons and lights and things.
5:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so that the electrons recombine.
5:32 Speaker 02 Exactly.
5:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And every time they recombine, they give off light.
5:35 Speaker 02 Exactly. Excite and recombine and, you know, de-excite and you get the, you get the light.
5:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that's a plasma that's not at very high temperature.
5:44 Speaker 02 Exactly, yes. Like a candle is also a plasma.
5:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or the flame.
5:49 Speaker 02 It's a flame, yes, the flame of a candle is, yeah.
5:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so now you need high temperature for fusion.
5:54 Speaker 02 Yes.
5:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What are you fusing?
5:56 Speaker 02 It's actually required.
5:59 Speaker 02 Or fusion, high temperatures required to fuse really light atoms, hydrogen.
6:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
6:07 Speaker 02 And also isotrop of hydrogen, heavier hydrogen.
6:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm hmm.
6:12 Speaker 02 Deuterium, and a little bit heavier tritium, with having two actually.
6:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh huh.
6:18 Speaker 02 Uh neutrons, so they can collide and they can fuse. And it has to be really, really high temperature to be able to kind of overcome, you know, these forces and create a lot of energy through neutrons.
6:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the forces are because you have, you have.
6:35 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
6:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A positively charged proton over here and another positively charged proton over there. Light charges repel.
6:43 Speaker 02 Right. Exactly.
6:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They don't want to get together.
6:45 Paul Mecurio? Right.
6:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you're trying to overcome this.
6:47 Speaker 02 Exactly.
6:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? With high temperature.
6:49 Speaker 02 Yes.
6:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because high temperature means higher speeds.
6:51 Speaker 02 Yes.
6:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Within the soup.
6:54 Paul Mecurio? And you're able to achieve the high temperatures or we're still working toward the temperatures have to be?
6:59 Speaker 02 The temperature actually can get very high temperature.
7:02 Paul Mecurio? But are we there yet?
7:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
7:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what the protons ask on their long journeys. Are we there?
7:09 Paul Mecurio? I have to go to the bathroom. We're not pulling over.
7:16 Speaker 02 Yes, we achieve really, actually in the experiments or facilities that we have. Uh to create, you know, high temperature plasmas to get to fusion. We really get to high temperatures. The temperature we actually achieve in a fusion experiments is even hotter, you know, than the center of the sun.
7:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm hmm. Yeah, so it sounds like ten million degrees, something like that.
7:41 Speaker 02 Yes, this is hundred million degrees.
7:43 Paul Mecurio? What do you generate, what are you using?
7:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're trying to make another star.
7:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
7:47 Paul Mecurio? But what do you generate?
7:50 Paul Mecurio? This isn't on, is it?
7:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is the kind of stuff that like, when you were a little girl, were you doing these kinds of experiments in your basement? And then your parents said, we got it. That's how the nemesis to superheroes are done. I'm going to make something hotter than the center of the sun.
8:11 Paul Mecurio? We just got you an Easy-Bake Oven.
8:14 Paul Mecurio? Well, I'm gonna turn it.
8:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I gave it more power.
8:16 Paul Mecurio? I gave it more power. And now it's 10 million degrees. You know what I'm baking? Plasma. And you're gonna like it. You want it with or without mozzarella cheese?
8:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, the lights of the town go.
8:30 Paul Mecurio? That's Fatima again.
8:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You don't have to confess to that. That's fine. So how do you get high temperature?
8:36 Paul Mecurio? Yes, how?
8:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because as I understand it, in order to make the plasma high temperature, something else has to be at a higher temperature than it. Is that right?
8:46 Speaker 02 You get the high temperature because plasmas, you know, carry electrons and current. Electricity, current, you could say.
8:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because they can.
8:54 Speaker 02 They can, exactly. They can. So therefore, they can, they can get to very high speed and high temperature. So the question is that, so you get this soup. How do you, where is it going to go? So how do you confine it?
9:10 Paul Mecurio? If it's 100 million degrees, what are you putting it in to contain it, to control it?
9:16 Speaker 02 To control it is put a lot of energy through magnets.
9:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, so a magnetic field, it's not a physical thing, so you can't melt that. Right? And all your charged particles, they respond to magnetic field. Electromagnetism, right?
9:32 Speaker 02 It's another force that our universe is electromagnetic force, yes, that is long range. It's one of the fundamental forces, you know, electromagnetic forces everywhere, you know, our sun, all the stars, you know, wherever you have plasma, you have electromagnetic forces and they respond to it. So you have the gas, you need to make the state of plasma, which means that you can, you can, you know, have some waves going into the gas, like antennas, and create your plasma. You could induce, inductively, current into your particles, plasmas.
10:14 Speaker 02 It can go around your chamber, which we are talking about. Tokomak chamber, a donut-shaped chamber.
10:22 Paul Mecurio? A chamber.
10:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tokomak.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, because Princeton has a Tokomak.
10:26 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, it has a Tokomak. It's not a con-
10:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What does that word even mean?
10:30 Paul Mecurio? Yeah.
10:30 Speaker 02 Because it's Russian.
10:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, it's Russian?
10:32 Speaker 02 It's a Russian-
10:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a Russian name?
10:34 Speaker 02 It's a Russian, two Russian scientists called this configuration.
10:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Toko and mak.
10:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:41 Paul Mecurio? They were a great act in the seventies in Atlantic City. They worked, uh, they worked the Stardust.
10:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Toko and mak.
10:47 Paul Mecurio? They worked the flamingo.
10:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so I did not know that. It's named for actual scientists.
10:51 Speaker 02 No, it's not actual scientists. The two scientists actually called it. It's kind of their invention, Tokomak.
10:58 Paul Mecurio? So when you say this chamber.
10:59 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:00 Paul Mecurio? The chamber is basically sort of harnessing or controlling the plasma.
11:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the donut shape.
11:05 Speaker 02 The donut shape, exactly.
11:06 Paul Mecurio? That is being heated up at incredible temperatures.
11:08 Speaker 02 Exactly. Various ways of heating the gas become plasma and heating the plasma to really, really high temperature.
11:17 Paul Mecurio? But are we heating it to the point where it is, we're at the cusp of being able to use nuclear fusion and get nuclear fusion that then propel rockets through space much more quickly?
11:28 Speaker 02 The rocket is a plasma propulsion. You actually get rid of the plasma you make from the back of the rocket. You're not confining it with magnetic field.
11:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the plasma rockets don't use fusion?
11:40 Speaker 02 Not necessarily. They don't have to use fusion. But if you kind of, you know that in space, we don't have any power or any, there is no gas station. The only thing we have is our sun sitting there and it's only going to give some amount of energy.
11:57 Paul Mecurio? There are rest stops with McDonald's.
12:00 Speaker 02 So if you want to go far, you need energy and you need fusion. If you're going to go stay around with solar panels, you have enough energy to-
12:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Locally.
12:11 Speaker 02 To use locally. You could use that for just propulsion.
12:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I remembered reading.
12:18 Speaker 02 Yes.
12:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because I know enough to know that in any gas, at any temperature.
12:24 Speaker 02 Yes.
12:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not all particles are moving at the same speed. Some are slow, some are fast. The temperature is the average speed that everybody's moving.
12:32 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
12:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. I remembered that there's some method where you can-
12:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Pick off the fastest moving particles and put them over here. And their average temperature is going to be higher than where they came from. Here we go. Treat them special. Put them in the slower group. But they're the fast class. Yeah, they're in a special class. Leave everybody else behind. Yeah, my god. You're cherry picking the fastest moving particles. Is that a thing? Am I remembering that correctly?
13:03 Speaker 02 Conventionally, it's usually a collective, you know, heating. You know, it's basically you have a true current, you know, it's like current. Now plasma also carry current. Current itself can heat, you know.
13:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, okay.
13:17 Speaker 02 Really, it can actually, it's basically all make heating. That's one way of heating the plasma.
13:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that heats up internally?
13:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
13:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not from, it's not hotter on the outside. You make it hot on the inside.
13:30 Speaker 02 That's how, that's one way. That's a conventional way of actually heating up the plasma, the first way to do it.
13:49 Speaker 03 Hello, I'm Vicky Brock Allen and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass Tyson.
14:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I spent 10 years at Princeton. And this is long ago.
14:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like, I'm old man now. In my day.
14:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We didn't have electricity.
14:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We would just yell and someone would hear us. So, in my day, at Princeton.
14:30 Speaker 02 Yes.
14:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Every year, there was talk of people saying, "We're almost there." By producing more energy than we put in. Which would then make it an energy source for the world. A very inexpensive energy source. Using readily available ingredients like hydrogen, which you will find at your neighborhood water molecule. They would say, "Oh, we're just five years away." And that was thirty years ago.
14:55 Speaker 02 Yes.
14:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what's going on?
14:57 Speaker 02 You're almost there.
14:58 Paul Mecurio? Oh my god.
15:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, wait, wait, let's back up. So Princeton has a Tokamak, but Lawrence Livermore has a different
15:08 Speaker 02 Yes.
15:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? configuration.
15:10 Speaker 02 So there are two approaches. One is just Tokamak. Actually, Princeton has a special Tokamak. It's called a spherical Tokamak, which is kind of, not like, it's like a fat donut or core apple.
15:25 Paul Mecurio? How is that different than a standard Tokamak?
15:27 Speaker 02 The nice thing is that it's more compact.
15:30 Paul Mecurio? Oh, okay.
15:31 Speaker 02 So that's, and other differences, but the main thing is
15:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A really puffy donut.
15:35 Speaker 02 Exactly, puffy. You could say that, a puffy donut.
15:39 Paul Mecurio? It was created by a Fluffinator.
15:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I remember that.
15:44 Paul Mecurio? Fluffinator, remember?
15:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think so.
15:46 Speaker 02 So it's a Tokamak, but a spherical Tokamak, and it's very special because of compactness and other things. And so by using magnetic field, you actually confine the plasma.
16:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so there's that. So now let's go to Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, California.
16:05 Speaker 02 It's so-called inertial confinement means that by shooting lasers and at very small, dense target, you get fusion. So our plasma at PPPL, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, is not that dense, but we have very high temperature. And so there's something we call, a little bit specific, something called Lawson criteria, which is basically the multiplication of the confinement time, how hot you get, your density. So each
16:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All of that combined.
16:38 Speaker 02 Combine, and if it's larger than something, you say that, oh, I achieved fusion. So inertial confinement has, you know, more
16:47 Paul Mecurio? Generates a denser, so
16:48 Speaker 02 Denser, exactly.
16:49 Paul Mecurio? Of all of those factors, is density the most important thing that gets you to?
16:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The sun gets high density for free, because you're in the center of the friggin' sun.
16:57 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
16:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's dense there. So they get free density.
17:00 Paul Mecurio? But what you're generating at PPPL is not as dense, so
17:05 Speaker 02 Yes.
17:05 Paul Mecurio? Sort of like it's what I would get at Walmart versus Saks. Like, if I were buying a product. It would be like the lower end.
17:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the first time those two stores have ever been in the same sentence. Ever.
17:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wait, so you can have it dense but not hot, or hot but not dense.
17:24 Speaker 02 Exactly.
17:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And some combination of those two will get you the fusion.
17:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
17:28 Paul Mecurio? Do we know the optimum point? Do you know the optimum relationship there?
17:33 Speaker 02 So, yes, we know the optimum is that you want to, first of all, fusion was achieved in nineteen, in nineteen, around nineteen ninety-five.
17:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But I have to correct that. Fusion was achieved like in nineteen forty-seven. It was just uncontrolled, and we called it a bomb.
17:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? At all times, she's referring to controlled fusion.
17:56 Speaker 02 Exactly.
17:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Pick up, now, now pick up the story where you left off.
18:00 Paul Mecurio? Where we're safe.
18:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We've done, we got fusion.
18:02 Paul Mecurio? We got it. It's everywhere.
18:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We got fusion.
18:05 Speaker 02 Correct, exactly.
18:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, that's the H-bomb, you know, uses the A-bomb as a trigger for it. That's to give the scale of this.
18:13 Speaker 02 Correct, exactly. The controlled fusion was done at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in the device called TFDR, you know, Test Fusion Reactor. It was obtained in...
18:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Achieved.
18:32 Speaker 02 Achieved.
18:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
18:33 Speaker 02 And it was a, you know, we obtained fusion, it was achieved in, in the nineties. Here, at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, and also had another experiment jet in Europe later. So, and, and, and about ten million joule energy was, you know, or ten, ten megawatt, million watt, power was obtained. So, we've got fusion. The question is that...
19:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, just, one joule per second is one watt.
19:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
19:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so she's thinking joules and energy.
19:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But watts is a power.
19:15 Speaker 02 Watt is the correct one. It's ten megawatt. And actually, the the record is seventeen megawatt later. So it's around that much.
19:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But I have a question. You have this big
19:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? fat doughnut.
19:29 Speaker 02 Yes.
19:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, and the whole thing is plasma.
19:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But if you hit the fusion threshold.
19:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Does the whole thing undergo fusion? Because in the in Lawrence Livermore, it's they know it's it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen in that little pocket that they created.
19:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's basically in the vessel, in the core of the vessel. So it's kind of your plasma, it's in the core. It actually needs to finally touch the wall. And that's where you actually get the energy.
19:59 Paul Mecurio? It's touching the mag- it's touching the magnetic field around.
20:01 Speaker 02 Actually, there is real wall. It's magnetic field all around.
20:06 Paul Mecurio? It's made of drywall, like plasterboard?
20:09 Speaker 02 We call it, we call it blanket. That actually.
20:13 Paul Mecurio? But what forms the blanket, in all seriousness, like what? What creates the wall?
20:17 Speaker 02 It's a, it's a various solution for wall, you know, it could be tungsten.
20:22 Paul Mecurio? But does it come as a byproduct?
20:24 Speaker 02 It's a various material, yeah.
20:26 Paul Mecurio? It's a byproduct of what you're, the way you're manipulating the plasma. A wall creates out of that.
20:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No.
20:32 Speaker 02 Actually, no, you actually put a physical, it's a physical wall, yeah.
20:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So why is it only measured when it touches the wall?
20:39 Speaker 02 Uh, because it's not measured, it's actually the plasma heat is being measured in the core.
20:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
20:46 Speaker 02 Yes, and that's when you get really hot plasma.
20:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what do you need the wall for?
20:50 Speaker 02 Uh, because it has to be confined, I, the plasma needs to meet some boundary.
20:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, we thought that was the magnetic field.
20:56 Paul Mecurio? Right, isn't that the magnetic field?
20:58 Speaker 02 So the magnetic field is all around the torus, all around the doughnut.
21:04 Paul Mecurio? Okay.
21:04 Speaker 02 So the magnetic field are, so it's not core. Yes, exactly, give it a shape. So you could say at all, you could think that you could put direct magnets around your your vessel, or you actually put coils that goes around your vessel. And then the wall, and then the plasma.
21:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Have these magnetic fields, we've all played with iron filings and magnets, and you can see magnetic field lines. And they form these loops, these these toroidal loops, okay. I know that on the surface of the sun, because it doesn't rotate as a solid object, there are these magnetic fields in there that get stretched. As the sun rotates its equator faster than other regions. And there are points where the magnetic field snap.
21:51 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
21:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They break and then they like reconnect. Does that happen in in your space?
21:57 Speaker 02 Yes, it happens on the surface of the sun exactly.
22:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
22:01 Speaker 02 The way you said. Sun actually, as you correctly mentioned. It's in a plasma state. Also create, you know, fusion energy. So a lot of energy in there. Another thing sun creates is magnetic field. All the motions of the plasma there creates magnetic field. So I'm creating magnetic fields. I need to get rid of this magnetic field somehow. These invisible field lines that you I'm creating. Where does it go? It goes to the surface and it kind of goes up like loops. And then the loops kind of at some point.
22:42 Speaker 02 This invisible field lines one go up, one go down and then they snap. They kind of cancel each other.
22:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
22:49 Speaker 02 And then they there's we call it detachment. The whole loop kind of getaway.
22:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it's chaotic, right? I mean, it's sort of it's it's not it's sort of like a bunch.
22:59 Speaker 02 Could be.
22:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, it's not controlled. It's like a bunch of five year olds in kindergarten on Skittles. You can't control them. They're loud. On Skittles, oh, okay. Okay. But but is it right?
23:08 Speaker 02 Yes or no? It could be places that is really chaotic. But also it could be like the collective, you know, ropes of magnetic field. They come together. They, you know, they they they kind of cancel each other magnetic field. And then you get the reconnection site and then the whole thing like detached. The plasma and the magnetic field.
23:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is how you know that physics do this, not astronomers? Because the people who study that are called magnetohydrodynamics. Oh, my God. That's just that should not be a word.
23:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That is one long business card. Little fold out extra section. Yeah, this is your business card. It's like that. You know, just, just, uh, so let's get back to the energy and then I want to go to rockets.
23:56 Speaker 02 Yes.
23:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so if you're gonna be useful to anybody.
24:01 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can't just make energy under the ground in Princeton, New Jersey. You gotta, it's gotta be, I don't wanna call it portable, but it's gotta be scalable. So you can move it to a town.
24:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That can generate energy that has no radioactive byproducts. You can generate it 24/7 and you're just using hydrogen.
24:18 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whose method will be better for this? The one, the inertial confinement from Lawrence Livermore or the Tokamak design from Princeton and other places?
24:28 Speaker 02 You have to pursue all the methods. It's actually.
24:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Diplomatic answer. I was gonna say. Oh, man! Wow. Man! I didn't know I was in Congress right now.
24:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That was what you say to members of Congress. But Senator, we need to pursue all. Okay. America is great. I like pie.
24:48 Speaker 02 And you even don't know about other methods. We call, we call this some more innovative, um, alternate method. But again, can, um, using magnetic field.
24:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
24:59 Speaker 02 You know, to, to kind of confine plasma and, and you know, get fusion energy. So all of them needs to prepare, but all of them need to get to some condition. And the condition is that you get more, you produce more energy than you put in.
25:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Otherwise, what's the point?
25:16 Speaker 02 What's the point?
25:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly.
25:17 Speaker 02 It's kind of the net gain that you kind of need to get. And we haven't got there engineering wise, physics wise, scientifically, maybe in some range. We can say that, oh, we got an energy from fusion. And as I said, this happened also in the nineties, you know, at PPPF.
25:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, there's a little bit of a overstatement about the. Livermore experiment because that one had net extra energy from the experiment. And so this was a, it was championed. But the extra energy they got was relative to the energy that they put in in this little spot. It didn't add up the, the, the whole system that made the thing a thing to begin with. Right, right. So it wasn't the total energy budget of the experiment. It was just the energy budget of the.
26:10 Speaker 02 Low collateral on the target. Yeah.
26:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? On, on the target.
26:13 Paul Mecurio? And it had to be attached to that target or near that target to be.
26:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, that's how they make the measurement. So, so the, I think, correct me if I'm wrong. If you're going to scale that, presumably you get some good engineers in there to say, how do we make this littler and you can make this more efficient and that? And then you just run the energy.
26:30 Speaker 02 You actually need to also make better lasers, more efficient lasers. Because the efficiency of it is not too great.
26:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, because you have to put energy in the lasers to make the.
26:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, but the lasers are going to help you to get the fusion. Exactly. So engineering net gain is not too high in that experiment. But the physics gain was good. And also the physics gain is also for magnetic confinement. We have good gain before and we are actually moving toward it with various, you know, configuration.
27:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
27:02 Paul Mecurio? And all of this, the idea of excited particles and where, where does that fit into all of this? And sort of how do, how do you, how do you calm down an excited particle? Jazz music, I don't know, candles, scented candles, like how do you?
27:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You asked her, how does she cool down the plasma?
27:19 Paul Mecurio? In a sense, right.
27:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because the whole plasma is excited particles.
27:22 Paul Mecurio? Right, but there, there are specific things that you do to control the excited particles?
27:27 Speaker 02 Oh, yes, yes. I think that you just want the whole hot, you know, plasma confined, controlled in a, and self-heated because it kind of interestingly, if it gets to some temperature, it can kind of on its own can get, you know, heated the plasma for a long, long time and produce a lot of energy. And that is fusion, a system or, or reactor. And, and we have made a lot of progress in each, you know, part of it.
28:00 Paul Mecurio? But as usual, we're not there yet.
28:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so how, how many?
28:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How many years from now can I plug in my wall and the energy on the other side of that plug is fusion?
28:11 Speaker 02 So, I mean, you know that...
28:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? She's gonna say five years away, didn't I told you? We're listening, go on.
28:17 Speaker 02 You know that.
28:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You didn't hear that, you didn't hear this.
28:19 Speaker 02 I mean, you know that, like, diesel engines are lots of, you know, advancement.
28:25 Paul Mecurio? Excuse me, Senator. Senator, could I have the witness answer the question, please, directly?
28:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? She mentioned diesel engines, that is not on the table right now.
28:35 Speaker 02 So, it all takes decades, yes, and fusion is, we are, it's a new physics frontier, it's the whole plasma physics. When an experiment, you know, is run, you kind of get into the new regime.
28:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because what you're, when you're doing actual research, you're on a frontier.
28:54 Paul Mecurio? Right.
28:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
28:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're not, you're stepping where no one has stepped before. You're gonna discover new things.
28:59 Paul Mecurio? So, you're gonna discover, and you're gonna discover hurdles that you could not have predicted, seriously, right?
29:03 Speaker 02 Yes, exactly.
29:04 Paul Mecurio? So, I mean, that's the issue, right?
29:06 Speaker 02 Yes, you get into new regime, you discover new things, and the whole, in fact, actually, the whole rocket system, it was, you know, a discovery through, in a fusion system, you know?
29:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, let's pivot to that, right now. Because it's still decades away before she's gonna make my electricity. All right.
29:24 Speaker 02 I mean...
29:26 Paul Mecurio? Miss Easy Bake Oven over here, cranking stuff up when she was 10, but she can't, all right.
29:31 Speaker 02 Commercially, you know, viable, commercially viable, I mean, you know.
29:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But everyone knows...
29:38 Speaker 02 We make fusion in a laboratory.
29:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Everyone knows how important that is.
29:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Culturally.
29:42 Paul Mecurio? Do we have any practical application of fusion right now? In any capacity that...
29:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Bombs.
29:48 Paul Mecurio? Other than bombs?
29:49 Speaker 02 In a shorter time scale, we do not have to have a large-scale fusion system to kind of give electricity to a whole city. We could have compact design for taking, you know, for space.
30:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right now, and forever, as long as we've had rockets, we've been using what we call "chemical fuels", which means they're molecules that have energy contained within them, and you break apart the molecule, the energy escapes, and that is our energy source. And so that has not advanced in 100 years. Because you scientists are lazy. You're not really trying. We use different chemicals. We have solid rocket boosters. That's a different propulsion chemical than the big tank. Essentially the same concept. It's the same concept. And so, tell me about plasma rockets, because there's a lot written about it, and we're not even talking about fusion yet. We're just keeping in your plasma universe.
31:16 Speaker 02 Yes. Plasma propulsion is the... Basically, we are talking about the next generation of rockets, specifically plasma rockets.
31:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And they're highly efficient, yes?
31:28 Speaker 02 Yes, they are highly efficient. In terms of... So there are several things about them is that the exhaust velocity is really high.
31:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What's hard for people to see, just being Earth's surface dwellers, because you say, "If I want to go forward, I just have to run or step on the gas." You're doing that at the expense of Earth beneath your feet. So the only reason why you can go forward is because Earth is... You're putting friction between your foot on the Earth, and you're changing the rotation of the Earth slightly. You're pushing back. You're pushing back on it. You have something to push back on. Right, so this is... In space! You have nothing... You've got nothing to push back on. So the only way you can change your speed is to give something up. And what are we giving up? Mass. Take it from there.
32:12 Speaker 02 Yes, you take it, and in this case, it's just you create the plasma or plasmoid through the process of like solar flares, magnetic reconnection. Um, and you detach these continuously detach this plasma from the back of the rocket and at high velocity.
32:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because it's at high temperature, at high temperature you get high speed.
32:35 Speaker 02 Yes, high speed, um, and the rocket is being propelled forward. And it's not, uh, it doesn't have to be high temperature. The interesting about the magnetic reconnection is that magnetic energy is being converted to kinetic energy. So it's all magnetic, yes, it's like the solar, doesn't have to be.
32:57 Paul Mecurio? So this is like, you, you want to get from point A to point B.
33:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:01 Paul Mecurio? With this, you snap your fingers, you're there. It's like badass.
33:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, no, no.
33:06 Paul Mecurio? Badass Google Maps.
33:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
33:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, this, this, it's, it's different because the particle comes out the back and the rocket recoils from it.
33:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But by how much? It's efficient, but what's the mass?
33:24 Speaker 02 The mass is not too much, so, so there are various.
33:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a tiny mass at high speed.
33:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I have a high mass thing on the other side that can only then go forward at low speed.
33:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? So how am I going to get anywhere?
33:35 Speaker 02 You're going to get anywhere by kind of having high thrust, high force. And that is through again exhaust velocity, you get it. And, um, it's constantly you're kind of pushing it, you know, it's like a constant acceleration. You get somewhere in a space, it's different from.
33:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, so you, you, you wouldn't use plasma rockets to launch?
34:00 Speaker 02 No, no, no, no.
34:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because they don't have that much, you can't send out that much mass because anytime you see a rocket, there's, this is coming out.
34:08 Paul Mecurio? So you've got to.
34:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This comes out and it goes the other way.
34:10 Paul Mecurio? You use rockets to get it there.
34:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To get it there.
34:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then through empty space.
34:15 Paul Mecurio? So we're talking about like some, in crazy, this is sort of like, like a massive wifi spot that's like got incredible power. Is that what this plasma thing, where we're, where we're going with this?
34:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, it's, I think from what I've read, and you, but you, you're in the middle of it, so just correct me if I'm wrong, you. When you're in free space, in open space, and then you turn on your plasma rocket, you know, it's like one particle at a time. And so you slowly accelerate. But acceleration is a constant, in this case, increase in your velocity.
34:50 Paul Mecurio? There's resistance coming on the rocket.
34:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's no resistance out there. It's a recoil, right? But since it's constant, and you do it for a long time, you can reach very high speeds.
35:01 Speaker 02 Exactly. So based on the results that we have, and we are actually building this tabletop prototype at the
35:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In your basement.
35:12 Speaker 02 No, no!
35:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tabletop.
35:16 Paul Mecurio? I'm using my oven.
35:18 Speaker 02 At the lab, you're building it. You can get to 100, 500 kilometer per second. So it's still...
35:26 Paul Mecurio? So that rocket can move at that speed? Could you have a sunroof on the rocket at that speed? That would be viable.
35:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A sunroof to see, just to...
35:36 Paul Mecurio? You know, just looking up.
35:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, what is up?
35:41 Speaker 02 But you need to get to that speed, you know. If you go to the moon, you don't need that much of a speed. And you could do it with this plasma rocket. You can do, you know, small payloads in three weeks or something with this plasma rocket. And it's not that this is sci-fi, no. This is actually for real, because we do plasma propulsion with just electric field. Now we are doing magnetic, using electromagnetic field, using magnetic.
36:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But three weeks is a long time. Astronauts, Apollo, they got there in three days.
36:16 Speaker 02 But we are doing the fast, you know, it's efficient.
36:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Efficient.
36:19 Speaker 02 It's efficient. It means that you go back and forth. It's not expensive. The fuel, it's flexible. You could use really hydrogen, you know, the one that we want to use for fusion, use really light atoms, so it's efficient. So it's fuel, flexible, and it's efficient.
36:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so you would use this, this would be the...
36:42 Speaker 02 It's like a nice car, yes.
36:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This would be the delivery vessel for supplies.
36:47 Speaker 02 Exactly.
36:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you can just plan ahead, send it three weeks in advance, and then we get there quickly. And supplies are very heavy, right? But you'll get there.
36:57 Paul Mecurio? We're using this plasma technology to get the... So you get the supplies there?
37:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, I, I think the point is, because you're just sending these very low mass particles, though they're traveling high speeds, the recoil is small but real and measurable, and it accumulates. So, I bet if we were to fly humans with one of these rockets, it would only make sense if we were going to Pluto or something, or to the nearest star.
37:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, for then you need for, to use this plasma propulsion, you need nuclear energy, fusion, or some kind of a battery to kind of give you both force, the thrust, yet you need like the
37:41 Paul Mecurio? But can you control it? So if you're approaching a planet's atmosphere, can you control?
37:47 Speaker 02 Yes, because-
37:47 Paul Mecurio? Otherwise, are you just driving that rocket right through the center of that?
37:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, that's a big problem in space travel, because if you can accelerate, and you want to land somewhere, you have to-
37:56 Paul Mecurio? You can't just pull up like a parking brake.
37:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right, there's no, there's no, right, right. So what you have to do is like, you know, flip the ship around and then have it, and have it send out particles the other way. So then it's a negative acceleration, a deceleration. And so that, that eats up some of your plan. But might we use this going to Mars, do you think?
38:15 Speaker 02 Yes, uh, yes, because of the, again, it's because of efficiency. You know, you could use chemical rockets-
38:23 Paul Mecurio? In ten years.
38:27 Speaker 02 To go there once, if you use all the resources you have. But you really need plasma propulsion. Um, for getting to the Mars, you also need the energy for that. And that's what the compact fusion, compact system come, that, that's why we, we work on that.
38:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so the plasma rocket is not the same thing as a plasma fusion rocket? Because the fusion, it's just a whole other source of energy.
38:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, so the plasma rocket, the, the energy can come from just some solar panels. Because, for example, for the moon, we have the sun sitting there, so we can get, you know, um, use the solar panels to get the power.
39:08 Paul Mecurio? But that can't be the level of, compared to plasma fusion, getting through, oh, through solar panels cannot give you the same level of energy.
39:15 Speaker 02 It's enough, it's enough from the lower-
39:17 Paul Mecurio? I want more than enough. I want the best. I'm an American. And that's how we do this in America.
39:25 Speaker 02 But we still, we don't even have that. We are not, this is like a FedEx going to moon and coming back, yes? That's what we are talking about, very efficiently. And, and you don't need that much of a power to do that. Like, 500 kilowatt is enough. It's enough. You don't need millions of-
39:45 Paul Mecurio? Right, so they get there faster, but the guy still leaves the package like 20 feet from your door and you have to walk out in your underwear to get it.
39:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The Porsche pirates steal it right now.
39:54 Paul Mecurio? Nothing changes with you scientists. You don't really advance-
39:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You walk out in your underwear to get your packages. Okay, I will port you next time.
40:00 Paul Mecurio? My neighbors requested that.
40:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wait, so, so I just wanna like settle my understanding on this. When you have a plasma, you have moving particles. You can send them out the back and you recoil.
40:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the acceleration is slow, but it's steady and it accumulates.
40:20 Speaker 02 Yes.
40:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So, if you have solar panels, the solar panel is not itself a propulsion mechanism, but it's a source of energy.
40:29 Speaker 02 Yes.
40:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you can channel that energy back into your plasma and keep the plasma going as long as we're close enough to the sun.
40:36 Speaker 02 Exactly.
40:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Now, now you're really far from the sun, you still need an energy source. And what would that energy source be if you can't use solar panels anymore because the sun is too dim? Would that be the fusion?
40:48 Speaker 02 Yes. It's fusion. It has to be non-chemical.
40:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, and non-chemical. So your fusion source of energy would still be heating the plasma.
41:01 Speaker 02 Yes, the fusion, basically, yes. The fusion-
41:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I had not appreciated that. It's still a plasma rocket.
41:09 Speaker 02 Exactly, exactly. It's still a plasma rocket because, because your magnets, you know, first of all, you can use several, but you still have to power your rocket. And the source of power, it could be solar panel, or it could be, it could be the, yeah, non-chemical fusion energy.
41:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plus, there's plenty of hydrogen gas in the universe. So you just scoop it up, put it in. So there are filling stations in the universe. I told you.
41:40 Paul Mecurio? When it's going through space, is the plasma sort of morphing and changing? And do you have to account for that? I mean, because it can survive. My understanding is it can survive plasmas in various states, right? I would imagine you have not been able to document every state that it can survive in, right? It's an ever-evolving science.
42:02 Speaker 02 So it's just that, basically, you need... The fuel here is like hydrogen, helium. Yes, you have the fuel. You can actually use the local resources in a space for the fuel.
42:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And NASA calls it ISRU? In situ resource utilization.
42:21 Paul Mecurio? Ah.
42:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Which is a terrible acronym. But, yeah, ISRU, that's the big thing.
42:26 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
42:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because then you don't have to haul everything with you.
42:29 Speaker 02 Exactly. So that you want to be... That's why we call it efficient. Basically, it's fuel flexibility.
42:35 Paul Mecurio? It's self-contained.
42:36 Speaker 02 That you can kind of... And it doesn't have to be helium. It could be hydrogen, any kind. And it doesn't have to be argon, because some of the electric propulsion, your gas needs to be heavy.
42:47 Paul Mecurio? Argon, don't even get me started with argon. That's a ridiculous waste of time.
42:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But why argon? Why not krypton?
42:53 Speaker 02 All of them. There could be any kind of gas that you can...
42:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I told you she's a superhero.
42:57 Paul Mecurio? I was gonna say.
42:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? She's gonna use krypton.
42:59 Paul Mecurio? I told you. I do feel like I've lost week... I'm weak around here.
43:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:03 Paul Mecurio? So there's... It can't exist on its own. It needs some other source of energy.
43:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But what can't exist?
43:12 Paul Mecurio? The plasma rock...
43:13 Speaker 02 The plasma, then, you kind of... You draw some... You create it. You ionize it. You create the plasma, yes? So that's the specific. You have to read the paper and the patent to actually see... You see how the plasma is created from this fuel, local fuel. And then you get the plasma. But as soon as you create the plasma, you get rid of it from the back of your rocket by the process of magnetic reconnection.
43:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you've got to lose some of your mass.
43:44 Paul Mecurio? Right.
43:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Every time you go, you're gonna go anywhere.
43:46 Paul Mecurio? But that's what I was saying earlier. Magnetic reconnection is... Plasmoids get created. They're not very unstable, but then become, over time, unstable and decay. Magnetic reconnection, sort of, there's this constant... Instability and how you control that and are you still working on being able to control that?
44:05 Speaker 02 So for rockets, for plasma propulsion, we are not confining anything. So we don't, basically, we don't care about stability. Because in a fusion device, you confine plasma, you don't want it to go unstable. For a rocket, you just make the plasma, you use the magnetic field.
44:24 Paul Mecurio? And then you just pollute space.
44:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
44:26 Speaker 02 Exactly, exactly, exactly. You get rid of it and then you make new plasma and get rid of it. And then the rocket just gradually goes.
44:35 Paul Mecurio? And that's why you need 1-800-GUT-JUNK for space. Because you're just putting garbage into space. But that attitude, I understand.
44:42 Speaker 02 But the plasma is not really junk. Because as I said, 99% of our observable universe is plasma. It's basically some charged particles you have in space. That you always have low-density plasma everywhere in a space.
44:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? She was good, she said the observable universe. Because we don't see the dark matter.
45:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We don't know what the hell that is, but it's not plasma.
45:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So she got that.
45:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah, so you could say that is.
45:07 Paul Mecurio? Why aren't you altering with these, with this plasma coming out of the back of a rocket?
45:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:12 Paul Mecurio? Aren't you altering space in a way by putting these particles into space?
45:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If, if space is 99% plasma to begin with, wouldn't that, it's just.
45:23 Speaker 02 It doesn't care.
45:25 Paul Mecurio? It's like putting more water in a pool.
45:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, it doesn't care.
45:27 Paul Mecurio? It's like putting more hair gel on my hair.
45:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a state of matter.
45:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, we are floating in plasma in the universe anyway. So you cannot make some little plasma and get rid of it.
45:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
45:39 Speaker 02 Go somewhere.
45:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Universal mind.
45:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, universal mind, yes.
45:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Fatima, I gotta land this plane.
45:45 Speaker 02 Yes.
45:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, let, let's, I want straight answers. You're in Congress now. Professor Abrahami, how soon are we from having plasma?
45:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Energy generating centers in every city.
45:58 Speaker 02 We are close, actually. It's a, it's a five, but.
46:02 Paul Mecurio? Five years?
46:03 Speaker 02 I would say five to ten years, yes.
46:05 Paul Mecurio? Okay, January, twenty thirty, you're gonna be right there.
46:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We got our number?
46:13 Speaker 02 So, in terms of that, but that is.
46:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We'll drag you back in here.
46:17 Speaker 02 Yes, but that's a scientific net gain, I said.
46:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
46:20 Speaker 02 If you want to put it on the, uh, electricity.
46:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Engineers are good. I'm not worried about the engineers. They come through when you need them. Okay, that's first. Second, when will we have rockets with humans in them that will use
46:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? plasma propulsion? And will the first trip to Mars use it?
46:38 Speaker 02 The first trip, I don't know, because it's possible that if you put, if all the resources are put there, you could get there once with chemical propulsion. But again, to be, to have a sustainable kind of, um, travel, uh, so you need, uh, plasma propulsion.
47:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Does NASA have a group working on plasma propulsion? Or do they call you up to get there? What do we do next?
47:07 Speaker 02 Yes, give me more funding.
47:10 Paul Mecurio? There you go. I knew she'd be begging for money at some point. But how, can a human travel that fast under three, under, isn't that an issue? Plasma propulsion, I mean, is.
47:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a slow acceleration.
47:23 Speaker 02 It's a slower acceleration.
47:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Your face is not gonna do this.
47:25 Speaker 02 It's not, no, no, no, no, no.
47:31 Paul Mecurio? I just wanted to get some of the lines out of her face.
47:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? High acceleration.
47:37 Paul Mecurio? Plastic surgery.
47:38 Speaker 02 Could I say that actually, maybe we look at more, um, closer time, you know, places to go. And I think Moon could be, as I said. It could be just plasma propulsion.
47:50 Paul Mecurio? What are we gonna do at the moon? We've been to the moon.
47:52 Speaker 02 Resources, resources, there's all sorts of.
47:55 Paul Mecurio? I got moon rocks in my top drawer, my drawer.
47:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, you don't.
47:58 Speaker 02 Actually, one of the way, one of the way to actually create fusion energy, it's something is called a neutronic, means that you kind of, the other, uh, you use deuterium, helium, you know, uh, to create energy and you don't produce neutrons, so.
48:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's just the PP chain in the center of the sun. There's no loose neutrons coming out of that.
48:23 Speaker 02 Yes, exactly.
48:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, because neutrons are bad, because they come out and they'll,
48:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They, nothing stops them.
48:28 Speaker 02 Yes.
48:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They don't have a charge.
48:29 Paul Mecurio? They're very pushy.
48:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Their, their advantages, they don't have to push. The other particles don't even know they're there. Am I right?
48:39 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yes, exactly.
48:40 Paul Mecurio? It's like dark matter.
48:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Neutrons, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a fun, uh, reaction in the sun. It's called the, the PP chain.
48:47 Paul Mecurio? Mm-hmm.
48:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Proton-proton chain.
48:49 Speaker 02 Exactly.
48:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It uses deuterium and tritium. No, I don't remember tritium, but we have, uh, uh, helium three is in there.
48:55 Speaker 02 Exactly, exactly, exactly. Helium three, so you have also fuel for also fusion. So there are things there and, um, you want to make some steps for the next generation, you know, non-chemical propulsion. You first make some good step progress and then gradually going further, you use fusion energy to go there, yeah.
49:19 Paul Mecurio? So in this process, you guys seem fairly lazy. You're taking your time, five years. Are you, are you using, in all seriousness, are you using, how does AI factor into any of your work or will it? In terms of the advancements you're gonna, you're trying to make?
49:35 Speaker 02 It's a fantastic question. It's there.
49:37 Paul Mecurio? Can you just say that again? Fantastic question?
49:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I didn't hear it. I didn't hear her say that.
49:44 Speaker 02 Fantastic. Yes.
49:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Actually, she is AI right here. She doesn't really exist. Did you think she was real?
49:52 Paul Mecurio? I kept, and my finger goes right through.
49:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It goes through her.
49:55 Paul Mecurio? Right through her leg, it's so weird.
49:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you hear the sound?
49:58 Paul Mecurio? Yeah, exactly. I, I didn't want to say anything. I think she's been around the, uh, plasma too much.
50:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? She is plasma.
50:07 Paul Mecurio? I'm sitting next to a plasma, don't tell it.
50:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, yes, I think, yes, definitely, you know, computers. First of all, all, most of the progress we made in plasma physics and fusion have always been, you know, together, experiments and advanced computation work together to make discoveries and also any kind of achievement is has to be together.
50:33 Paul Mecurio? Well, I think we kind of need to wrap this up.
50:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Well, Fatima, give me some words for the future.
50:40 Speaker 02 Be patient in terms of.
50:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, refer. Okay, I'm sorry I had.
50:48 Paul Mecurio? It's not, the answer is like this, well, how do you define future?
50:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me say, for the future is that progress and discovery doesn't happen, doesn't happen overnight. It's the continuous work of scientists, long-term investments, to kind of, you put all the energy you have, collaboration, all of that, and cross pollination of various types of, you know, group working on various types of plasma or types of devices, fusion experiments, progress happened like that. It's not, so it's just, it's also new physics. We learn every day in every regime of plasmas, we learn new things, and we apply it, like
51:37 Speaker 02 this, you know, rocket thruster. We apply it for other applications. What we learn in fusion, we also apply it for other, for other applications. And so it's just.
51:50 Paul Mecurio? It's an ongoing process.
51:51 Speaker 02 It's a continuous work.
51:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Fatima, typically at the end of our, our sessions, I offer the viewer a cosmic perspective on the topic.
52:01 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Of the day, but you, you so beautifully summarized the plight of the scientists, the engineer, society, funding sources, that's any and all that I would have said in my cosmic perspective.
52:14 Speaker 02 Thank you.
52:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So thanks for making my job just a little easier today.
52:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Good to have you, man. Always great to be here. All right. Good luck. You need some of that sometimes, right? Yes. When you're messing with plasma. Yes, exactly. And one day you'll give us a tour of your basement. Exactly. And listen, whatever you do. I'm welcome, both of you. Thank you. And keep up your vague answers. (laughing). No, it's really interesting, very fascinating. Thank you. This has been StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, reporting from my office at the Hayden Planetarium, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. As always, keep looking up.
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