In the comments at MSNBC Fusion Report Dr. Richard Nebel, who is working on a test version of the Bussard Fusion Reactor, has this to say.

Since there seems to be some confusion here, I guess I should clarify some things. Yes, we are operating the WB-7 and we have had plasma since the first of the year. What we don't yet have is full pulsed power capability which is required to test the concept. As many of you are probably aware, plasma experiments have a lot of different components that have to come together (vacuum systems, HV systems, safety systems, gas feed systems, etc.). The general proceedure is to test them component by component before you try to do an integrated test. We have been doing those component tests. The components that Alan alluded to that we were waiting on came in this week. Now we are building the hardware. We are a few weeks behind our original ambitious schedule (we started in September 2007 with a building and no equipment) but we haven't seen any showstoppers yet.

As to Ned's "rules", we don't get to write those. Our customer does that.

H/T JoeStrout

Cross Posted at Power and Control