Oct
9
Details On Dr. Robert W. Bussard Passing Away
October 9, 2007 | 10 Comments
Through the grief of those closest to Dr Bussard some details are coming out. Dr. Bussard was a cancer victim of two kinds who was in the last weeks enduring radiation and chemotherapy for the disease.
Reports are he worked continuously while in treatment and assembled a good team to continue the research and development of the IEC fusion method he has been developing from funding provided by the US Department of Defense.
When funding for the research resumed Dr. Bussard attracted a friend who is a PhD plasma physicist recently working at Los Alamos and a PhD whose experience is in experimentation. Some staff from the previous lab in San Diego are on their way to join the team.
Dr. Bussard’s friends assert that he did everything he could to ensure that the work on IEC fusion will continue.
This morning M. Simon at Power and Control Blogspot posted an excellent eulogy that contains a brief list of some of Dr, Bussard’s most noteworthy work and a strong link list. See:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/10/dr-robert-w-bussard-has-passed.html
Of note, Dr. Bussard was a trained engineer and added physics expertise as working requirements demanded until he became the preeminent magnetic confinement physicist/engineer in the field. Dr. Bussard gained famed in his youth for his design of the Bussard Collector that is often referred to in futuristic science stories.
Mid career Dr. Bussard was Assistant Director at the Controlled Thermodynamic Reaction Division of the Atomic Energy Commision, one of the forerunning federal agencies of the Department of Energy.
Late career saw Dr. Bussard working on the Inertial Electrodynamic Confinement also commonly referred to by the anagram of IEC or the common term “polywell” that has been through six development phases and has entered the seventh. Many physicists and engineers believe that the insights and research of Dr. Bussard have developed the best and most likely to become practical and commonly used devices to bring the potential of nuclear fusion to mankind.
We wish to express our regrets at Dr. Robert W. Bussard’s passing and extend our sympathy and heartfelt compassion to those family members, friends, co-workers, students and so many others touched by this generous and unassuming man. His lasting legacy may well be the discovery of the physics and engineering that makes energy a common, abundant and low cost resource for mankind.
Comments
10 Comments so far
Dr. Robert W. Bussard Has Passed…
Tom Ligon who worked for Dr. Bussard has informed me that Dr. Bussard has died. A sad day for all of us in the IEC Fusion community. A great one has passed. We are all diminished by his loss. Fortunately……
[...] Details On Dr. Robert W. Bussard Passing AwayOctober 9, 2007 [...]
ooh, the inventor of the Bussard Collector!
Dr. Bussard was a gracious guy we will miss him. May our grandchildren remember him well.
His dedication to saving mankind cannot be measured by a Nobel prize, Oscar, or other insufficient materialistic bobbels.
Dr. Brussard was a hard charger always giving his best.
Even if I didn’t always agree with him I held him in the highest esteem for his integrity and honesty.
I am truly sadened for the lost of such a great spirit for mankind.
God Bless Dr. Brussard for all his contributions to our existence.
He is with the big guy now and I am sure he is at his right hand.
I cried…
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for Bob and I were both (then young) colleagues and friends at Los Alamos, mutually involved with reactor designs for space power plants and rockets. I remember that he was a great fan of brownies, which his wife made for the both of us when I, then single, visited his apartment in Los Alamos for dinner and drinks.
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He was always intereted in plasmas and fusion, and analyzed the pacific high altitude H-bomb data that I collected when we both worked for J-10 under H. Hoerlin.
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Our last meeting was in San Diego, recently, where he and I discussed the importance of non-equilbrium systems.
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It is tough to realize that he is gone. There are not many of us left that have experienced the glory years of Los Alamos.
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Death of Robert Bussard was a strike for me. I was planning to prepare a mutual report on fusion jet engine for flights in Solar System to be presented in 12-th International Conference on Information Fusion. The loss of Robert will influence negatively on fusion development and its revenues for people. He was a bright and agressively attacking person!
- Andrey Soubottin,
Bob’s collaborator in 1971 events
My relationship with Dr. Bussard began some 41+ years ago. With a chance meeting on our joint flight from two distinctly different business meetings. Mine from my assignment with the Mississippi Moon Rocket, test program in the Mississippi swamplands and Dr. Bussards flight from the prestigious Electro-Optical/Xerox, Pasadena, California.
We formed what was to become one of the first “socio-economic management think tanks” BGA/Associates. The for-runner of the “Green Group” currently succeeded by http://www.PrometheusAndAssociates.com
Dr. Bussard’s “spirit and will is still the light which drives us all to apply technology to benefit all mankind”.
He was and is truly my inspiration to apply his enlightened thinking to the problems confronting modern man.
Gilberto
“Rest Roberto”
Kellog Brown and Root
employment@darpa.mil