What once was the provenance comic books — a super-compact, high-powered fusion reactor — is now becoming a reality, and soon Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark could see their might matched by none other than Lockheed Martin. But instead of powering the Ironman suit or Gotham City, Lockheed's reactor is expected to make waves in the realm of everything from aircraft carriers to spacecraft.
The company's patent, discovered March 28, also contains a drawing of an F-16 jet, signalling Lockheed even sees an application for the reactor in fighter aircraft.
Scientists have been working to develop a practical fusion reactor since the 1920s.
A fission reaction releases energy by splitting large atoms like uranium or plutonium, radioactive elements that are inherently dangerous. The fission process that can become self-sustaining under certain conditions. A fusion reaction occurs when two smaller atoms, like hydrogen, for example, which are not necessarily dangerous on their own, are fused into a single larger atom, such as how the sun creates heat and light. That fusion of atoms releases more energy than their fission does, and can theoretically be done in smaller quarters.
An electricity-generating fusion plant has never before been constructed and the only controlled fusion reactions have been hydrogen bombs, also called thermonuclear bombs.