The new National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (www.llnl.gov) could be described as a $1.5 billion game of thermonuclear laser tag. Thirty feet in diameter, NIF's spherical fusion chamber houses the world's largest laser, aiming 192 beams totaling 500 trillion watts of power at a BB-sized capsule containing hydrogen isotopes; the target quickly reaches the temperature and density of the sun's core or the center of an atomic explosion. Hot fusion's applications range from astrophysics to national defense. "This country doesn't do nuclear testing anymore," says NIF senior scientist Bill Hogan. "The facility lets us test the properties of a material in a thermonuclear state." Under the gun this fall for cost overruns, the project has already licensed NIF technologies to some 30 companies who've set their sights on commercial uses, though the lasers won't start firing until 2003 at the earliest.
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