Other Earth's

I keep having these dreams where I go to another planet in our solar system that we are terraforming. The thing that has been weird is that the planets are small, perhaps the size of our moon or even smaller; they have some water but are relatively dry. They aren't Mars, they're farther out.

Until recently, this seemed impossible, but now I read that there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of planets in our solar system, and they may extend out as far as half-way to the next star.

These planets would be too cold for life as we know it. But, what if we could introduce the necessary energy to warm them? Hydrogen fusion, the same thing that drives the stars could make this possible, and recent developments may make that a reality.

While Tokamak reactors get most of the attention, there have been a handful of alternative designs that scientists have working on quietly, and one of them, the Bussard Polywell reactor, is looking very promising. I won't go into the details here, if you want to know more specifics, see my Science and Technology blog.

The Bussard Polywell reactor is small, (12 feet across would be a big one), cheap (about $12 million to build), fuel is cheap and abundant, aneutronic fuels can be used generating no radioactive waste and not requiring radioactive fuel. The Polywell reactor has zero potential for melt-down or dispersing radioactive elements if run on aneutronic fuel.

Because the fuels are readily available, because the unit is small enough that it could be launches into space, and because it's cheap, these could be the basis for thawing frozen worlds in the Ort cloud and making them habitable.