Long Term Maintenance of Fusor.net

[update March, 24, 2024. The new $7.500 goal represents a continuation of the ongoing effort. GoFundMe does not permit funds already raised to be subtracted from a new goal without starting a new campaign.)

Fusor.net is an educational resource that provides first-hand experience and counsel in the design, construction, and operation of 'desktop' nuclear fusion devices called "The Fusor."

Over more than 20 years, fusor.net has become the world's largest resource on this specialized subject.

The users of Fusor.net have been build and operate small-scale nuclear reactors based on a design first developed in the 1950s and 60s by an inventor named Philo T. Farnsworth. If that name is not familiar to you it should be. In the 1920s and 30s he invented a more familiar technology, something called "television." Every video screen on the planet - including the one you are looking at now - can trace its origins to a sketch that a then 14-year-old drew for his high school science teacher in Idaho.

Fusion is the promising but elusive technology that asks the riddle "how do you bottle a star"? If the answer to that riddle can ever be found, scientists believe mankind will have a clean, safe, and inexhaustible source of energy at its disposal.

But so far, despite 70 years of research and countless billions (it's probably trillions by now) spent, the answer to the riddle remains out of reach.

At fusor.net, both amateur and professional scientists share their knowledge and experience with the Fusor, the simple and elegant device that Philo Farnsworth introduced more than 50 years ago. We still pour more energy into these devices than they produce, but the members of Fusor.net are bottling small, synthetic stars everyday – as the illustration that accompanies this fundraiser illustrates. That's a 'star in a jar.'

The knowledge base within the forums at Fusor.net have been compiled by hundreds of members over more tham 20 years. In those two decades the site has gone through several different incarnations of different platforms. In 2019 the entire site was physically relocated from one host to another, an event that caused no minor disruptions in the service.

Now we are experiencing another such disruption. Due to a variety of unforeseeable circumstances – most notably and not the least, an inconceivable degree of incompetence on the part of our current host – the site has experienced a number of disruptions, loss of data, and, finally starting in mid-February 2022, the apparent loss of the entire site.

We do have most of our data backed up. We are now in the process of recovering the site and getting ready to relocate it - again - to a more reliable and secure host.

The funds that we raise here should be sufficient to compensate a professional developer in this quest and pay for several more years of hosting.

There is no promise that Fusor.net will solve the world's energy-and-climate problems, but the site serves valuable educational purpose for hundreds of aspiring scientist around the world.

Don't rule out the possibility that somebody, someday, will solve the riddle... and could well get his start at Fusor.net.

All we have to do is get the site back up and running.