Hi All

Key to fusion development is the choice and testing of neutron resistant materials. Originally a test facility was to come after ITER, but Japan and France quit arguing and decided to put up enough money for ITER and IFMIF to be built in parallel...

IFMIF

...this will speed up fusion power development by at least 15 years.

It's funny but about 20 years ago Brian Stableford and David Langford wrote "The Third Millennium" which was a coffee-table history-book of 2000 - 3000 AD. They got a lot wildly wrong even in the mere 2 decades since, like the old USSR persisting to 3000 AD, total lack of mention of mobile phones or fuel-cells and they had Internet by c.2020, though digital TV was the dominant medium in their view [Hah!] One thing that might be true is the drawn out timetable for fusion development - at current pace we won't see a real fusion power takeover from fossil fuels before c. 2100 as they predicted. The first power generator arrrives in 2054...

Interestingly they saw a key fusion breakthrough coming from a semi-private orbital facility - Spacelab IV - perhaps Bigelow needs to look into materials labs as a selling point.

Adam