I recently posted the following at Yahoo Group StarTrekOne:

Engage Impulse Drive NOW!

Impulse Drive isn’t Warp Drive, but it IS an important intermediate step to the stars. Impulse Drive will open up the solar system to human colonization, and allow unmanned exploration of the nearer stars.

NASA had funded research into ‘Focus Fusion’, a neutron-free nuclear fusion rocket engine that will have a Specific Impulse of 100,000 seconds (vs. the Space Shuttle’s 450 seconds). Budget cuts forced NASA to discontinue funding, even though progress was being made.

Focus Fusion is now being (under)funded by the government of Chile for earth-bound applications as a cheap, clean fusion reactor electric generator.

All other government funding for fusion research ($100 million/year) is being channelled into a 35-year project to develop the ITER Tokamak reactor, which will not be cheap or clean, and cannot be used as a rocket engine.

Proper funding of Focus Fusion ($5 million total over 5 years) will tell if this particular approach is on the right track.

Right now, the Focus Fusion project needs $40,000 to proceed to the next level of research. Every strip of latinum will help.

For more information, and to channel MORE POWER to the Impulse Drive, go to

http://www.focusfusion.org

Jolly Roger ;-)X