Reflections on the past and future of fusion and plasma physics research

Research in basic plasma physics and in controlled thermonuclear fusion are briefly compared. The development of fusion from the 1958 Geneva conference to present machines is sketched and intervening factors are analysed together with the interplay between smaller and larger thermonuclear machines. The importance of close ties between universities and fusion laboratories is underlined and the need for regrouping some of the latter, as machine size increases, is examined. The daunting size of the energy needs of mankind around 2050 as compared with supply and the threats of global warming demonstrate the crucial importance of constructing ITER, the international experimental reactor, very soon now that the necessary physical data have been obtained. It is our deep moral obligation to convince the public at large of the enormous promise and urgency of controlled thermonuclear fusion as a safe, environmentally friendly and inexhaustible energy source.