Congress Shorts Buck Rogers...

Every once in a while something comes along to remind me that I'm not half as smart as I think I am or as well informed. Today came the news that the "National Ignition Facility Project" was being shutdown by a cut in Federal Spending...Duhh(?)..
The NIF I learned for the first time today was an effort to simulate hydrogen fusion by focusing 192 powerful lasers on a single point creating a huge release in energy.
Now you would have thought that I would have heard of this "bad boy" before because my favorite Tom Clancey novel of all time was the "Cardinal of the Kremlin" and it was all about the race to develop a powerful laser weapon.
So far 4 of the 192 lasers have been built and installed at Livermore, California. The cutoff of funding ends the program right there. Detractors say that four lasers will be enough to do the experiments the project was meant to do. Supporters say the project is dead because without the additional lasers the project's main goal of "fusion ignition" cannot be reached.
Oh well..You can’t miss what you didn’t know you had...