Reply To: What would a fusion powered airliner look like?

[Stephen Wordsworth]

As the fusion reactors can be turned off as soon as you land and only turned on again during take off you can save on radiation shielding and only put the radiation shadow shielding on the side facing the passengers you can also moke use of distance reducing the thickness of shielding required, by putting the all the reactors together in two pods underneath the two wings as far away from the passenger compartment as the wings structure can take it. 8 focus units per pod for redundancy if you want a unit in the body of the plane for emergency power in the tail behind a shadow shield but the two pods should be enough. Where the central fuel tank usually is is now more cargo space. The wing fuel tanks now recirculated coolant. This might not make flight as cheap as you might think see


But the airframe could be made heavier and more rugged for more pressurization cycles. Unlimited range with no refueling stops on smaller planes.

And then there is this
Plasma jet engines that could take you from the ground to space
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431264-500-plasma-jet-engines-that-could-take-you-from-the-ground-to-space/
Susing similar electrodes to focus fussion
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/825/1/012005/pdf
A hypersonic ionocraft that can take you into orbit on electricity using the upper atmosphere as reaction mass, just needs fusion power to work.