This is CBS, I am the world. I'm John Baxter, hotel Mars episode in. David Livingston,

Dr. Space of the Space Show is here with me as my co-pilot, and we're headed to other

planets and eventually to other planetary systems. However, we need power to get there.

And we all know about chemical rockets, Elon Musk is the master of them. He's building

a ship that can take human beings to the moon and Mars and perhaps beyond. But beyond

that, what we need is a system that will take us for a long voyage is efficiently. And

that describes fusion power. I welcome Stephanie Thomas, the vice president of Princeton

satellite systems and the new entry, Princeton fusion. However, we're going to start with fusion

energy to begin with for space travel. Stephanie, a very good evening to you. Thank you for

this. Fusion power is part of the nuclear energy mysteries to me. But fusion propulsion is

very focused. And I understand it's much more fuel efficient than chemical propulsion

ever could be. How does it work? And where is it right now in development for travel

to other planets? Good evening to you. Hi, thanks so much for having me on today. It's

always fun to talk about fusion propulsion. So how does it work? Fusion is all about

scale. So as you mentioned, energy, we're talking orders of magnitude more energy. And

also being able to eject our propellant orders of magnitude faster, which lets us to use

less propellant to get places and have more power to get places faster. So it's about faster,

bigger, better. And where is it today? So there are there's a burgeoning commercial fusion industry,

which you may or may not be aware of. There are many companies now trying to develop

private fusion reactors. And space is a great application for this because you don't have to be

an economical reactor. You have to be able to create propulsion, but you don't have to be

cost competitive with wind and solar. So many companies are seeing space is actually a great

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