R. E. Kidder discusses the differences between magnetic fusion and laser fusion.

Bromberg:

Did CTR group lay any role at all? They sound as if they pretty much weren't involved in all of this. The magnetic fusion people. I would just think that they would look a little bit askance at this rival fusion program growing up around them.

Kidder:

No, they didn't. There was no contact between — there never has been, between the magnetic fusion community and the laser fusion people. The only exception to that is, I don't know if this is still of any interest, but sometime in the past, the magnetic fusion people were interested in filling their magnetic bottles with plasma, produced by injecting a pellet of solid deuterium and then evaporating that with a laser. And so to that very limited extent, some of the people in laser, in ICF, Inertial Confinement Fusion, particularly in Japan, worked on schemes for, laser schemes for making these pellets, as a source of plasma for the MFE people. But with that exception, which is really very peripheral sort of thing, there wasn't any. The ICF people certainly were never interested in the MFE work. And I don't think, outside of the MFE's interest in filling their bottles with plasma this way, they never had any interest in the ICF work either. It was two entirely unconnected paths to a somewhat similar goal. The difference, of course, was that the magnetic fusion had no military significance whatsoever, never has, so they never got a dime out of the military people, either the DOD or the DOE. The advantage of inertial confinement fusion was that it's always had this military source of funding, plus at least, the plus part, it's had its ups and downs, the possibility at least of getting money on the basis of power production. So ICF has had always two possible hats they could put on. Magnetic fusion has never had but one, and that's been a tougher thing.