Impressions of Fort Wayne - July 2001

[guest]

I was very fortunate to spend most of this past weekend in the company of Richard Hull and two veterans of the Pontiac Street ITT/Farnsworth fusion lab, Gene Meeks and Steve Blaising.

I'd met Gene Meeks on one previous occasion, but this was my first encounter with Steve. Together, the two of them are quite the team, a latter day Abbot and Costello. Gene is now 68 years old, and Steve is 78, but both are quite healthy and in full possession of their faculties... and their very strong recollections of their years in the service of the Farnsworth fusion project. There were a number of interesting revelations that came to light during our conversations.

First and foremost, I came away more convinced than ever that ITT was not nearly as interested controlling fusion in their lab as were the individuals charged with carrying out the effort. The impression I get is of a clueless administration commanding a knowledgeable and dedicated staff. I mean, what these two guys know about IEC fusion is invaluable. Gene Meeks, in particular, had so much first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the various incarnations of the fusor that his brain should probably be preserved well past the life-expectancy of the fragile body he's carrying it around in.

I think Gene Meeks has probably produced more fusion than any man on earth today. He started working with Phil Farnsworth even before the lab was established at ITT, in the late 50s when Phil was determined to set up a lab in his home if ITT would not fund the research. From there, Gene was present during every incarnation of the fusor, from the first bell-jar prototype to the Marks I, II, and III, and beyond, into the days after Farnsworth himself was largely absent from the project. He had a hand in the construction of the 6-gun model that Bob Hirsch used for his experiments, and - most notably - built the "II-Prime" that Gene used in his own experiments (you can see pictures of all these fusors at Richard Hull's website: http://www.richmond.infi.net/~rhull/highenergy013.htm>.

The tales of this latter device - the "II Prime" are what compel my conclusions about ITT's lack of genuine committment to the project. In 1967, Gene was conducting experiments with this configuration that produced 10e13 total neutrons - the highest level ever obtained with a fusor. By comparison, the experiments conducted while Farnsworth himself was still active peaked out at about 10e9, and the most Bob Hirsch ever produced was approx 10e10. Thus Gene's 10e13 was a full three orders of magnitude greater than any other experiments conducted during the 10 years of fusion research at ITT.

Furthermore, you could safely argue that Gene Meeks produced more fusion than any lab anywhere in the world before or since, including the Tokamak labs. "The tokamaks can produce zillions of neutrons for a few milliseconds," Gene observes, "but the fusor can produce billions of neutrons per second for periods of many minutes. You tell me who's producing more fusion...."

And what became of these results? "I was told not to report it," Gene says. His superiors (Hirsch, etal) were afraid that if ITT ever learned how much actual fusion was being produced within the poorly shielded confines of the Pontiac Street facilities, they would have immediately shut the whole thing down. I know it sounds paradoxical, but that's the sense you get, that the executives of ITT were of a mentality that said, "wow, that thing really works... better stop now!"

Reflecting on this scenario, Gene commented that, with perfect 20/20 hindsight, following his orders and failing to report his results was the biggest mistake he ever made.

For his part, Steve Blaising was full of lively anectdotes, but was really unable to shed much new light on the account Richard unearthed last spring about the alleged "sustained reaction" that Fred Haak reports (Fred was supposed to join us for this weekend but was unable to attend). We had hoped we might gain some meaningful insight into this and other "startling and unexplained" events that occurred over the years in Fort Wayne. But it turns out that Steve did not even read the report from the testing lab as to the levels of radiation recorded on the dosimeter badges when they were sent out after this one particular event - he learned of the "off the scale" readings from somebody else. So the mystery persists as to whether or not the Pontiac Street Team "unleashed the dragon" if only for an instant.

The mystery that does not persist is "why the work stopped if it was so successful?" Steve Blaising has in his possession (and I now have in mine) documents pertaining to ITT's attempt in 1967 and 1968 to get the AEC to not only endorse, but to actually fund, further research in to IEC fusion. The documents are quite revealing.

First, I think it is reasonable to assume, as Richard Hull suggests, that the reasoning behind ITT's deferal to and solicitation of the AEC is very simple: ITT owned the patents, the work was costly and not adding anything to the company's bottom line... why not get the government to fund it? With that end in mind, ITT submitted a proposal to the AEC in late 1967, and in 1968 a team from the AEC came to Fort Wayne to inspect the lab and the experiments. At the time, a number of "outside experts" submitted independent reports to the AEC, confirming the viability of the IEC concept and encouraging continued exploration into the approach.

In 1968, the AEC delivered their decision in a one-and-a-half page letter to Robert Hirsch and Fritz Furth which basically said, "this work is interesting, but we don't have sufficient funds to support it." With that, the ITT effort was shut down. Shortly thereafter, Bob Hirsch left ITT and went to work for the AEC, and a few years later began spending billions on the tokamak. Go figure.

So it was not because the work was not promising that it was abandoned. It WAS a purely economic/political determination, and we now have documents to prove it.

Politics and economics aside, the most lasting impression I have from this reunion is that both of these men still feel that this was the most important work they ever did in their long careers. Steve Blaising remained with ITT until he retired in 1985; Gene Meeks followed Farnsworth to Salt Lake and the abortive "Philo T. Farnsworth Associates" enterprise which collapsed in 1970, then returned to Fort Wayne to work with a number of other firms until his own retirement.

But in both cases, when you listen to the passion and reverence that both of these men have for their years in the Farnsworth fusion lab, you sense that this was perhaps the most rewarding periods of their careers. You also get the sense that much of the work was done under any number of clouds, including ITTs minimal committment to the work and Farnsworth's own vascillating interest and health problems.

Nevertheless, there were great strides made at the ITT/Farnsworth Laboratories, perhaps the greatest ever made toward practical control of nuclear fusion. "We were close... very close" Gene says of the team's prospects of achieving the holy grail of a self-sustaining, better-than-break-even fusion reaction.

Of that I have little doubt.

---PS

(a photo composite of Meeks and Blaising, past and present, is attached to this message)

[teslapark]

Excellent work between you and Richard in rooting out the good info. I found your story and pictures very entertaining and gratifying. And the documents (I guess you now have a facsimile) regarding IEC's termination are especially valuable. I have had physics professors and researchers at Oak Ridge both tell me that the fusor must be a dead end street because of its speedy death over thirty years ago. The general attitude that I have found among the scientist and univeristy types is that IEC was quickly recognized for its faults, and rightly thrown out to make room for the serious contenders.

These documents seem to provide pretty conclusive evidence to the contrary. Do you plan to place these online, or are they available somewhere publicly? Just as Richard says, this is more ammo to fire back to the skeptical and spiteful.

Again, thanks for the superb history lesson.

Adam Parker

[guest]

I'm in the middle of scanning a scrapbook full of pictures that Steve Blaising loaned me; when I get that done, I'll photo copy the documents, then I'll think about how much is appropriate to make fully "public." Gimme another week or so, the sked is pretty full for the next few days.

--PS

[guest]

That's some really interesting tidbits of information from Gene and Steve. I'd be interested in hearing about the basic construction of Gene's 10 E^13 fusor device, whether it was similar to Bob's unit or whether it was more an ion gunned Philo style fusor. It's interesting that there's not much official information about Gene's device which most likely would have lost without trace if Richard and the Perfesser had not tracked him down.