Retiring NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher, who is also a renowned physicist, said Friday that he has no doubts that the University of Utah fusion experiment indeed has created fusion - despite skepticism by many other physicists.
"There's no question it's fusion because the radiation that comes off is exactly the right kind of wave length and so on.
"The big question is what are you going to do with it. It is a different kind of fusion that we are used to. And whether you can get actual, commercially viable energy out of it - (that is) the big question remaining."
Fletcher made the comments in a farewell reception for reporters who covered NASA during his tenure, which ends Saturday.
He said he plans to remain in Washington for the coming weeks to help his successor at the space agency. But he said he has agreed to head a task force in Utah to decide what the state and U. of U. should do with the fusion discovery.
He said he also plans to talk to U. President Chase Peterson next month about the possibility of teaching at the U. next year and also about participating in the U. fusion research program.