I have no disagreement with your assertion, aside from the neglected aspect of in terms of energy in Vs energy out; the research is likely to help inform nuclear weapons design, yet if they are able to achieve more energy out than in (3mj out Vs 2mj in (though of course they required 300mj to run the lasers to produce this reaction)) then they are providing important data that may help inform different future designs of power generating fusion reactors, this is something that current other designs don't appear to have achieved afaik.
I doubt they will ever really use this style as a functional form of power generation, but if what they learn from the research allows eventually for a longer functioning fusion reaction that has an overall positive energy output, then it may be rather valuable.
Thermonuclear bombs are a mixture of fission AND fusion, the amount of energy required to achieve fusion requires fission to provide said energy.
Lasers igniting fusion is a bit of a more of a stretch to create a weapon from (the lasers require 300 mega joules of energy which in turn is 2mj of energy into the reaction and 3mj energy out); it may provide context and more information for fusion as a whole but that information is relevant to both weapons and energy research, not one or the other.
Researching this doesn't prevent renewables being researched or rolled out? I think the nuclear scientists developing this might be better researching this as opposed to researching fission reactors or researching renewables as this is likely their area of expertise.
Fusion is a long shot but if it was achieved it would be world changing (hopefully for the better)
Outta curiosity, how is fusion viable for bomb research? (Ignoring the fact that the world's current nuclear arsenal is already incredibly powerful, and that 100mega ton bombs have been designed and 50Mton bombs have been tested)
Edit: thank you to all for providing additional context, I see your point regarding more research is valuable for both weapons and energy research, though to say definitively that it is used for weapons research is neither here nor there.
I find it interesting how it appeared clear in 2016 US election that Reddit for example was being a target of Russian interference, (alongside other places like Facebook and Britain during Brexit), even with Russia in a weakened state China appears to have seen what was being done as valuable and taken up the task
The playbook always seems to be to stoke wedge issues, including funding groups on both sides of the political isle; funding the NRA and BLM seems to be two of the most common examples. The reality being that the amount of disruption and destabilisation that is achieved, it must be that these governments must see it as good value for their money.
I read through the link, both the details on the air forces vehicle plans and the 'encounter' later.
This one is odd but I do still wonder what the feasible explanations of this may be.
The smell of sulphur can be cause by many things, including burning vulcanised rubber or geological activety. The radiation might be explainable, but I have no indication of what the readings were (background and of the area/objects/burns), which makes it more hard to make any suggestions. Though his injuries did immediately make me think radiation exposure...
Lastly, the molten metal recovered from the site.
What is the composition of the metal? And if they say they pried it from a crack in the rock, the shape that it has taken is too perfect... The angle on each bend is near identical, and the length of each straight is once again identical (something screams not pulled from a natural crack in rock to me).
Nothing concrete can be explained by this, but it is intriguing...
A keychain jewellers loupe, inexpensive but invaluable, can be used for inspect something up close, whether it's writing on computer chips to helping with mushroom identification, to identifying makers marks on old silware.
In a similar vein, cheap usb microscopes, though less versatile are incredibly useful for soldering/inspecting PCBs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts
A short story about this from the same Czech author who (IIRC) gave us the concept and word 'robot'.
@Uranium_Green
@sh.itjust.works