The results of these classified experiments in the Nevada desert were hailed as a "historical turning point" in the field, known as inertial confinement fusion. And the government seemed ready to act quickly. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the next step would be a laboratory microfusion facility(LMF), which could cost more than $1 billion. A design would be chosen in 1991, DOE officials said, and construction could begin as early as the following year. Those steps excited the small community of ICF researchers, who had toiled for years in relative obscurity.
But their optimism was shortlived. Plans for the laboratory are now on hold, possibly forever. And the reason isn't just the considerable cost of another high-energy physics project.
The fall from grace of the LMF is a story about the darker side of big science. The race to acquire a new facility exacerbated an already cutthroat competition ...
