regarding fusion power: what about for rockets? From what I can tell (which is not much) I’m not sure magnetic confinement would work for space travel, at least, not the really convenient “Pluto in one election cycle” kind of drives we want
PSS and the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL) are collaborating on a new fusion technology. Direct Fusion Drive is a revolutionary direct-
Cohen, S. A., et al. (2019). Direct fusion drive for interstellar exploration. JBIS - Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 72(2), 37-50.
You're thinking too small!! Get rid of the torus and rethink the problem from the beginning.
Take an old-fashioned linear fusion reactor concept, like a magnetic mirror, and chop off one end. Use “aneutronic” fuel, like deuterium-helium-3, so all the fusion products are charged and you can direct them through a magnetic nozzle. Flow some other gasses around the reaction to add more heft to the exhaust, and point it behind you.
Now you’ve got Direct Fusion Drive, baby!!! A fusion thruster, using the reactor plasma itself as propellant. Extremely high specific impulse (like, 10000 s), and it may be able to hit that four-years-to-Pluto milestone!
A few people are working on variants of the concept, but I’m most familiar with the one being built by the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and a spinoff company. They have a funky field-reversed configuration device, but that's a tumblr post of its own. Maybe one of my plasma physicist mutuals could chime in and explain it better than a mechanical engineer >.>
