Back in September 2013, an 800-ton convoy had tested the physical resistance of the ITER Itinerary—a stretch of 104 kilometres of road between the Mediterranean Sea and the ITER site that has been specially modified for the transport of ITER's most exceptional components (see ITER Mag #1, December 2013).
In the world of fusion research, experimental programs aren't carried out consecutively ... they overlap. Physicists were already trying to imagine ITER (under the name of INTOR) when construction of the European JET tokamak was just getting underway in the early 1980s; now, work is underway on the conception of the next-stage machine, DEMO, while the ITER installation is still years from finalization.
In the middle of the Tokamak Complex Seismic Pit a vast circle is now visible, part of the complex reinforcement work underway for the B2 foundation slab. Once in place, 16 levels of 40-millimetre-thick rebar will support the weight of the machine.
Fifty years ago, in 1964, human beings believed in progress. Manned space capsules were routinely sent into space, a revolutionary supersonic commercial airliner was nearing the prototype stage, the computer mouse had just been invented, and the official decision had been taken to build a cross-Channel tunnel.
