Riemann's Contribution to Flight and Laser Fusion

FEF NewsAn Interview with Dr. Friedwardt WinterbergOpening the Frontiers of ScienceDr. Friedwardt Winterberg, a pioneerin inertial-confinement fusion,was the featured speaker on a universitytour sponsored by the Fusion EnergyForum of West Germany May 25through June 5. Winterberg lecturedon the importance of fusion for basicresearch and space exploration to studentsin Aachen, Bonn, Giessen,Karlsruhe, Kiel, Mainz, Munich, andStuttgart.Well known in Germany, Winterbergwas educated at German universitiesand was a student of thegreat physicist Werner Heisenberg.His lectures generated lively discussionfrom the student audiences, especiallyon the subject of nuclear energy.While in Stuttgart, Winterbergwas interviewed on a topical newsprogram on prime time television onthe future of fusion.Winterberg, currrently a professorat the University of Nevada in Reno,is considered the father of impactfusion tor his early work in thermonuclearignition by hypervelocity impact.He received the 1979 HermannOberth gold medal of the HermannOberth-Wernher von Braun InternationalSpace Flight Foundation for hiswork on thermonuclear propulsion.Winterberg's book. The Physical Principlesof Thermonuclear ExplosiveDevices, was published by the FEF inAugust.This interview was conducted byJonathan Tennenbaum, director ofthe Fusion Energy Forum.Question: What do you see as thesignificance of fusion, and what areits prospects?During my lecture tour here inWest Germany, I have heard thatsome scientists have predicted thatcontrolled fusion could not beachieved before the year 2050. I don'tThe moment controlledfusion is achieved,development canand will proceedwith tremendous rapidity.And I believe we willachieve controlled fusionduring this decade.know who made this prediction, butI consider it completely wrong. I amrather certain that by the year 2000,fusion will have been meaningfullyachieved in the sense that it will alreadybe in use for the production ofenergy; it will also be used to solveother problems, problems that havenothing to do with the production ofenergy, but are of tremendous importancefor basic research in general.I am thinking of space travel. Byusing nuclear-powered rocket engines,it will be possible to transportgigantic payloads at greatly increasedspeeds throughout the solar system.I am also thinking of the applicationof fusion to particle accelerators inhigh-energy physics, by means ofwhich it will be possible to achieve adeeper fundamental understandingof nature.Question: Now that that Space ShuttleColumbia has had a successfulmaiden voyage, the possibility of puttingmen in orbit on a scheduledflightbasis lies open to us. How doesthis milestone contribute to the prospectsfor fusion-powered spacetravel?The two developments have a veryinteresting and very close interrelationship.First of all, from now on wewill be able to regularly put men inorbit with a device like the SpaceShuttle; that is, a device with relativelylow acceleration. But with the applicationof fusion power, we will be ina position to put very large payloadsin orbit at an extremely low cost incomparison with the Space Shuttle.Let's remember that it is very expensiveto put payloads in orbit withthe Space Shuttle, and probably willremain so. We are not just puttingmen in orbit; we want to establishwhole industries there, and so equipmentconstitutes the largest part ofthe mass to be transported. Throughthe use of fusion, it should be possibleto build magnetically driven cannonto achieve shots that reach very highspeeds—perhaps 10 kilometers persecond. These shots can pierce theatmosphere, and in this way can putlarge payloads in orbit at a very lowcost—perhaps one thousandth of thecost by the Space Shuttle.With these payloads in orbit, wecan construct large spaceships withnuclear-powered rockets, which inturn can push out to Mars, to Jupiter,54 FUSION October-November 1981 FEF News