Gigawatt, quasi-steady plasma flow facility for fusion rocket simulations

Human exploration of the Solar System would benefit greatly from substantially reduced trip-times (e.g., months vs years). To achieve the necessary high thrust-to-weight rocket at exhaust velocities optimized for fast interplanetary transfers, very hightemperature (-100 keV) plasma extracted from a thermonuclear fusion reactor would heat much larger masses of hydrogen plasma to high temperature (-100 eV). While much lower, such temperatures still require the use of magnetic fields to obtain a directed rocket exhaust. Thus, many concepts for fusion-heated rockets have development of efficient magnetic nozzles on their critical path. The Godzilla gigawatt pulser can provide a testbed for such development.