Edison tried hundreds of materials for making lightbulb filaments
You guys are talking past each other, but I think alcaray's trying to say the process of R&D almost always requires exhausting a lot of possibilities--going down a lot of blind alleys--before reaching the desired goal. The Tokamak approach had to be checked off the list and proven not to work before proceeding to explore other more speculative approaches.
Right, alcaray?