Compact Fusion Reactors

In recent years we have begun to see a number of bizarre patents assigned to the U.S. Navy that describe radical new technologies that could revolutionize the aerospace field and perhaps even the way we live our lives day to day. These include high-energy electromagnetic fields used to create force fields and outlandish new methods of aerospace propulsion and vehicle design that basically look and act like UFO technology. Now, the same mysterious Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division engineer behind these patents has produced another one for a compact fusion reactor that could pump out absolutely incredible amounts of power in a small space - maybe even in a small craft.

The form of nuclear power generation employed in nuclear reactors today is fission, in which unstable isotopes of uranium and other radioactive materials are bombarded with particles, splitting them apart and releasing energy. Fusion, on the other hand, involves uniting atoms of hydrogen isotopes like Tritium and Deuterium under extreme pressure and temperature to produce helium isotopes and neutrons, a process that releases large amounts of energy.

If it can be achieved, nuclear fusion would be a massive improvement over fission in that it produces much lower levels of radioactive waste and greenhouse gases, does not require enriched nuclear material that could be used to produce weapons, has a far lower risk of meltdown, and can be powered by more sustainable fuel sources. Fusion has long been hailed as a long-term solution to humanity's energy needs.

While nuclear physicists and engineers have been conducting experiments with fusion reactor designs for decades, it remains challenging, to say the least, to engineer systems that can contain temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees Fahrenheit under extremely high pressures. Most of the world’s successful fusion reactors are currently only able to maintain plasma discharges for periods of time measured in minutes or even seconds.

Even more challenging is designing nuclear fusion reactors that are mobile, such as ones that might fit inside a shipping container or a ship. Currently, most of the world’s experimental fusion reactors are the size of large buildings and so the ultimate goal of much current research is to develop compact fusion reactor systems small enough to work on a ship or possibly even an aircraft.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has been working to create a game-changing compact fusion reactor. The elite aerospace design unit has been constructing a new and more powerful experimental reactor as recently as July 2019. Aside from Lockheed Martin, several private firms have been developing their own compact fusion reactors (CFR) in recent years, and the government-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has claimed to have made significant progress in developing fusion reactors that could one day be capable of producing revolutionary levels of beneficial energy.

While Lockheed Martin’s CFR designs have garnered quite a bit of media attention and internet buzz in recent years, it appears one of the Skunk Works' major clients is also hard at work in this field. The U.S. Navy has recently filed a potentially revolutionary patent application for a radical new compact fusion reactor that claims to improve upon the shortcomings of the Skunk Works CFR, and judging from the identity of the reactor’s inventor, it's sure to raise eyebrows in the scientific community. This latest design is the brainchild of the elusive Salvatore Cezar Pais, the inventor of the Navy’s bizarre and controversial room temperature superconductors, high energy electromagnetic field generators, and sci-fi sounding propulsion technologies.

Like other bizarre Salvatore Pais patents the extent to which this patent represents an operable, functioning, or even feasible technology isn't clear. The Navy has vouched for some of his designs in the past, however, going so far as to claim these inventions actually exist in an operable form and that they are needed for national security purposes, most notably to keep pace with adversaries like China. But unlike some of Pais’ patents, this application surprisingly sailed through the United States Patent and Trademark Office without rejection and subsequent appeal.

Salvatore Pais is clearly a busy man finding novel applications for high energy electromagnetic fields, and the Navy is patenting some truly science-fiction-like next-generation technologies that if realized, have the potential to change the course of technological development as we know it. Will this be the power source that goes along with his other recent "UFO patents" - the engine needed to complete a seemingly otherworldly craft of some sort? Many believe so. The procession of these patents and their potential relation to one another is certainly intriguing, to say the least.

The Navy remains unwilling to discuss their new and unusual developments, however. Many physicists think these patents are beyond the realm of known physics and are questionable at best in terms of viability. At the same time, all this is occurring as the Navy, and the Navy alone out of all of the branches of the U.S. military, continues to discuss the fact that its pilots are encountering unexplained aerial phenomena at an increasing rate.

With all this in mind, is the Navy building some sort of incredible craft based on science that remains foreign to the larger scientific community? Has Pais and his team been successful at reverse-engineering captured alien technology from crashed spacecraft? Even more curiously, did they already re-engineer such alien technology years ago, and are they just slowly lifting the veil now? Are we at the early stages of the biggest expansion of advanced aerospace development programs in decades? Is the Navy finally opening its kimono on a rumored world of advanced technology that has been under development and deployment in space since the early 1950's? The future looks bright indeed if this is the beginning of the imminent disclosure we keep hearing about.

Adapted from B. Tingley and T. Rogoway, Oct 9, 2019, in The WarZone Newsletter