stella nix

(Disclaimer: all the information and images in this post are from open-access articles and press releases, and I am not speaking on behalf of any research group or company)

Depends. Are we talking about modern experimental devices, or future power plants? In the former case the answer is "send a human or robot in there," in the latter it's either "send in a robot" or "take the thing apart (with robots)."

Either way, you can't send anything inside while it's running. Everything needs to happen during downtime, every year or so during scheduled maintenance.

Experimental devices:

After long periods of operation, many experimental fusion devices end up somewhat radioactive, from nuclear transmutation of the vessel itself and small amounts of trapped tritium in graphite heat shield tiles. Usually this means they send people in wearing dosimeters to keep careful track of exposure, good PPE, and set a limited amount of time that any one individual can spend inside every year Here's a technician upgrading equipment inside DIII-D, a tokamak in San Diego:

Source: DIII-D National Fusion Program Completes Facility Upgrade

Don't touch the graphite with your bare hands, leave the vessel after you've reached a pre-approved radiation dose (usually something roughly equivalent to a medical x-ray), and you'll be quite safe.

There's an exception though. Most devices (like DIII-D above) use ordinary hydrogen or pure deuterium (hydrogen-2) as fuel, which is useful for experiments but is not intended to produce significant amounts of power. However, some now-decommissioned experiments – specifically, JET in the UK and TFTR at Princeton – used a 50/50 deuterium-tritium (hydrogen-3) fuel, which is prototypical of an actual power plant.

This produces several orders of magnitude higher neutron flux than deuterium alone (which leads to higher rates of nuclear transmutation in the metal structure) and leaves significant tritium contamination in the walls, to the point where it is unsafe for humans to enter the vessel at all.

So you send in remote handling robots!

At JET, they replaced thousands of tiles with robotic arms controlled by a guy. This works for an experiment, but is costly, time consuming, and requires extensive training.

Future power plants:

Many future power plant concepts envision a combination of internal robotic maintenance, like JET, and some method to remotely split apart the reactor to send in something larger than a couple of robotic arms (cranes, forklifts, etc). You still can't send a human in there, but having the whole thing opened up makes access a lot easier.

Proxima Fusion has some nice figures in an open access paper on their Stellaris power plant concept: Stellaris: A high-field quasi-isodynamic stellarator for a prototypical fusion power plant. Their idea is to divide the stellarator into four sectors that can be slid out:

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

i don't care about old social media posts that have coincidentally and mysteriously "resurfaced" following the outrage of transmisogynist fans. you clearly missed the part of this where Jax is reflective of Goose's past behavior of using edgy and harmful humor to play the bad guy and push people away in order to cover up the fact that she is a trans woman. you missed the part where Gooseworx has explicitly grown past that kind of behavior and Jax is an exercise in extending empathy to a past version of herself who was trying everything in her power to be uworthy of love and care. you fundamentally do not understand the art you are a fan of.

1977: Star Wars is released, featuring, of course, Darth Vader

(Pictured: Darth Vader)

1984: Director Todd Durham releases his Star Wars parody movie, Hyperspace, featuring Darth Vader inspired villain Lord Buckethead.

(Pictured: Hyperspace poster featuring two Jawa-esque aliens flying through space in a shopping trolley.)

1987: Hyperspace is released on video in the UK, under the new title Gremloids.

(Pictured: Gremloids cover in the style of the original Star Wars poster, featuring Lord Buckethead.)

To promote the film, Mike Lee, the owner of the distributing company, ran for parliament as Lord Buckethead. He ran in Margaret Thatcher's constituency, Finchley, in order to get on TV. Lord Buckethead was representing the Gremloids party.

(Pictured: Lord Buckethead on TV with Margaret Thatcher.)

1992: Gremloids is re-released. Lord Buckethead rides again, this time against prime minister John Major in Huntingdon. (Here's a fun fact about Huntingdon: I was born there! :D) 87/92 Buckethead seems to have leaned pretty hard into the space supervillain thing, with campaign promises including 'demolish Birmingham to build a spaceport'.

(Pictured: Lord Buckethead on TV with John Major. Other notable candidates include Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party.)

2017: comedian Jon Harvey, having recently watched Gremloids and learned of Lord Buckethead's candidacy for parliament, decides it's a great bit. He runs against Theresa May in Maidenhead. 2017 Buckethead seems to have a wackier and also more political approach, with campaign promises ranging from nonsense like 'nationalise Adele' to gesturing at actually sensible policies with stuff like 'lower the voting age to 16 and restrict voting after age 80'.

He also made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As with his previous incarnation, he was a member of the Gremloids party.

(Pictured: Lord Buckethead dabbing on stage with Theresa May.)

2018: Director Todd Durham asserts his legal ownership of Lord Buckethead. Jon Harvey opted not to go to court over Buckethead and handed over the reins. Todd Durham extended an invitation to anyone who wanted to be the 'authorised' Lord Buckethead.

(Pictured: the new Lord Buckethead.)

2019: Lord Buckethead, now played by journalist David Hughes, stood against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He ran for the Monster Raving Loony Party, the UK's pre-existing gag candidate party. He ran with a similarly silly manifesto as the 2017 incarnation, but with a bit less of a political edge. His promises included 'All doorways to be increased by 1 foot (30 cm) in height' and 'Nigel Farage to be sold for parts'.

(Pictured: Lord Buckethead and Count Binface square up.)

Meanwhile, Jon Harvey in his new persona Count Binface, also ran against Boris Johnson. Buckethead and Binface face off! Binface ran as an independent with a manifesto once again blending silly and semi-serious promises such as 'nationalising model railways' and 'giving £1 trillion a week to the NHS'. This was also I believe the debut of his promise to 'move the hand dryer in the men's toilet at Uxbridge's Crown and Treaty pub to a more sensible position'.

(Pictured: Count Binface presenting the offending hand dryer, inconveniently close to both the sink and the urinals.)

He has a point.

2021: Count Binface runs for the position of Mayor of London for the first time, with promises such as 'London to join the European Union'. He notably finished ahead of far right party UKIP.

2023: Count Binface runs in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election following Boris Johnson's resignation. He once again gets more votes than UKIP.

May 2024: Count Binface once again runs to be Mayor of London, debuting his now iconic 'build at least one affordable house' promise. Notably, he finished ahead of far right party Britain First.

(Pictured: Count Binface with Rishi Sunak. Also pictured: Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Sir Archibald Stanton with a ventriloquist's dummy.)

July 2024: Count Binface stands in the general election, running in Richmond and Northallerton against prime minister Rishi Sunak. He debuts his promise to cap the price of 99p flakes at 99p. This is his most successful election to date with 308 votes.

(Pictured: Count Binface with Andy Burnham. Also pictured: independent candidate Robert Pownell, dressed as a fox for his own reasons.)

June 2026: Count Binface stands in the Makerfield by-election against Andy Burnham, (recently) former Mayor of Manchester running for parliament with the intention of standing in the Labour Party leadership contest.

(Pictured: Count Binface on BBC's Newsnight.)