But last week Putin did something right.
He paid homage to Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov, Russia's Wernher von Braun. An outstanding rocket scientist, he was the man behind the Soviet space exploration programme. It was he who launched Sputnik and brought the first man into orbit, whether it be Yuri Gagarin or the son of aeronautical designer Ilyushin. On January 12, 2007, Putin praised Korolyov as being "not only a brilliant scientist. He was a true pioneer, author of the first great victory of space conquest". Flowers were laid at the space pioneer's grave (in a Kremlin wall), a concert was held at the Korolyov Ground Control Centre (just outside Moscow) and there was even a tribute via videolink from the International Space Station's current crew.
Who was this Korolyov? He was born in 1907 in Zhitomir, a provincial centre in the Ukraine, as the son of a literature teacher. The young student proved to be a natural talent in mathematics, and studied at the Odessa Building Trades School, the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, and the Moscow N.E. Bauman Higher Technical School. He also displayed an ardent passion for aviation, designing his first glider, the K-5, at age seventeen. Influenced by the writings of Russia's first space exploration theoretician, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Korolyov became interested int he possibilities of rocket-propelled aeronautical design, and in September 1931, together with a certain F. A. Tsander, founded the Moscow rocketry organisation GIRD (Group for Investigation of Reactive Motion), which was funded by the Soviet military. The sponsors did not have to wait long: in 1933 Korolyov and Tsander launched the USSR's first liquid-propellant missile, the GIRD-9. By then the regime had developed a keen interest in the military potential of rocket aircraft and missiles, and expanded GIRD into RNII (Reaction Propulsion Scientific Research Institute). They brought in Korolyov's lifelong rival, Valentin Glushko, another brilliant aeronautical designer, who was put in charge of rocket engine design, while Korolyov concentrated on airframes. The two would become lifelong rivals. Their work culminated in Soviet Russia's first rocket propelled manned aircraft: Korolyov's RP-318, which was powered by Glushko's ORM-65 rocket engine.
Then came, from 1937 on, the Stalinist purges and one year later both Glushko and Korolyov, who was denounced by the former, found themselves in prison, accused of "economic sabotage". Korolyov was sent to a Gulag Camp in Kolyma, Siberia, where he was to dig for gold. The inhumane treatment there cost him his health, which would ultimately lead to his untimely death. It was Korolyov's - and the world's - great fortune that after a couple of months yet another famous Russian aeronautical engineer, Andrei Tupolev, himself a prisoner(!), was able to persuade the Gulag administration to have the rocket scientist work for him in Sharashka TsKB-29, or "prisoner design bureau 29", in Omsk. The sharashkas were special camps set up by the regime in order to not completely waste their human capital. In TsKB-29 Korolyov worked for some time on the Tu-2 bomber, after which he was transferred to another sharashka in Kazan, where he became deputy of... Valentin Glushko. In 1944 both Korolyov and Glushko were released on parole (having sat out the greater part of their sentence of eight years anyway) and the year after both were dispatched to Germany to evaluate captured A-4 ballistic missiles (he A-4 is better known as the V-2, Hitlers Vergeltungswaffe-2). Yet one year later, in 1946, Korolyov was appointed a Department Chief of RNII-8 in Podlipki, northeast of Moscow, and it was from this moment on that his career took a huge flight. RNII-8's task was the development and industrial production of missile technolgy based on German hardware, and in the following years Korolyov first designed the R-2 (a Russian variant of the A-4/V-2) and R-3 ballistic missiles, until, after partly leaning on German concepts (Groettrup's) coming up with the famous R-7, the worlds first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).
Ironically, the original R-7, intended to be launched with a thermonuclear warhead against the United States, was already obsolete before it ever took off. But its derivative, the R-7 Launcher, nicknamed semyorka, was to prove itself an indispensable tool for the Russian space program for the next half century. Indeed, the R-7 derived space boosters are used till this very day to carry Russian manned spacecraft and payloads into orbit and are even right now used for delivering personnel and supplies for the International Space Station. In popular literature, not the denomination R-7 is used but a name, like Sputnik, Vostok (swallow), Voskhod, Molniya or the most ubiquitous term, Soyuz (unity). Actually, the Soviet denomination system caused some confusion in the West because subsequent R-7 generations were often named after newly designed payloads: the R-7 carrying the world's first radio satellite, the Sputnik, was called Sputnik itself, the R-7 bringing into orbit the first manned spacecraft, the Vostok, was of the Vostok type, the R-7 with the first Soyuz (a more sophisticated, three-man crew spacecraft) was of the Soyuz type and so on.
But the overall look of the R-7 family throughout five decades has remained very much the same: a two-stage booster of which the first stage consists of a core element with a main engine (originally the four-chamber RD-107) and the characteristic four strapped-on boosters, and then a second stage with another main engine (originally the four-chamber RD-108), on top of which the payload is mounted. I'm sure those who sometimes watch Russian spacecraft take off recognize the craft - at first sight looking very much like Sergei Korolyov's maiden R-7 which first took off almost fifty years ago on May 15, 1957 , or the one which, on October 4 of that same year, orbited the first man-made satellite, the PS-1 or Sputnik-1. Of course, the propulsion system was Glushko's work, and the control systems Pilyugin's, but Korolyov was Chief Designer. Without him, the Soviets might not have succeeded in putting first a radio satellite and then a couple of dogs around the earth already in the fifties. Or, on April 12, 1961, the world's first astronaut, fighter pilot Yuri Gagarin, who was the first man to orbit the planet.
There's another reason, especially for Americans, to like this man. Korolyov, although basically working for the Soviet military, was fascinated by the conquest of space. As we have seen, his R-7 was a failure as an ICBM platform. It needed huge launching pads, was complex to assemble and had lenghty launching procedures. It used cryogenic liquid oxygen for fuel and was radio controlled. Being overweight, it only had a range of 6,800 kilometres, meaning that with a thermonuclear warhead on top it could basically only wipe out the northeastern tip of the United States. Even though MFBB would dread such a scenario, because ripping the state of Maine off the face off the earth would mean I'd have to pay myself for keeping DowneastBlog online, it's clear that the Soviet top brass was not pleased with the military potential of Korolyov's designs. He fell totally out with the Marshals and Generals when he was able to convince the Politburo to drop the development of the Zenit military reconnaissance satellite, begun in 1956, in favor of manned spaceflight, and when the R-7 (ICBM)'s successor, the R-9 (ICBM), proved to be an impractical weapon too, the rift was complete. Note that Korolyov stood virtually alone in this conflict, since not only the other ICBM designers (Chelomei, Yangel) were much more eager to please the military, but also because in addition, Korolyov was standing increasingly alone with his preference for cryogenic liquid oxygen fuel over solid or hypergolic (self-igniting) fuels. Use of the latter, albeit more dangerous, kept the missiles ready to fly at any moment, while Korolyov's cryogenic liquids could only be loaded onto the rockets right before launch, since they boiled off at normal tempareatures. Nothing illustrates the Soviet military's preference - or their dislike for Korolyov - better than how they deployed their early ICBM's: only 54 of Korolyov's R-9 missiles, against 380 of Yangel's R-16's, and 800 of Chelomei's UR-100's (the latter was considered the Russian answer to the US's Minuteman ICBM).
Still, Korolyov's standing was high: his Vostok and Voskhod manned spaceflight programs meant good propaganda for the regime. These years of frantic activity, when Korolyov led the development of several generations of (admitted, unsuccessful) ballistic missiles, launch vehicles, interplanetary probes (Luna, Venera), science, military and communications satellites, and manned spacecraft, marked the high point of his career. His finest realization with regards to the last category is without doubt the Soyuz spacecraft, which in 2006 achieve the milestone of a 40-year operational career. This well-known, most successful spacecraft ever consists of three parts with from front to back, an onion-shaped orbital module, a small aerodynamic reentry module, and a cylindrical service module with characteristic solar panels. A Soyuz offers three cosmonauts nine cubic metres of living space and provides life support for up to 3.2 days. A total of about 230 have been built, in a number of variants, for instance the unmThings looked suddenly more bright for Korolyov in 1964, when first in August he obtained approval for a Soviet manned lunar lading program. Then, two months later, Kruschev was overthrown, and one of the side-effects was that Chelomei, a favorite of Kruschev and always more concerned about the military aspects in space exploration, was suddenly out of favor. In this crucial fall, Korolyov was able to gather under his control all elements of the Soviet manned space program, and work was begun on the giant, five-stage N-1 rocket, the Soviet Saturn-V.
Then, in 1965 Korolyov was diagnosed with colon cancer. In January of the year after he checked into a Moscow hospital, where he was operated by the Minister of Health himself. Colon surgery was not his area of expertise, and an operation which should have gone off smoothly lasted five hours and went horriby wrong. On January 14, 1966, the father of Soviet Space Conquest died on the operating table, 59 years old, and with him the Russian Moon Landing Program. It is true that the design of the N-1 was from the start marred by technical problems, and that Korolyov's insistence on an automated Moon approach unnecessarily complicated the undertaking. It is true that his stubbornness alienated him from other very talented chief designers, most notably Glushko. On the other hand, his genius, grandiose vision, enthusiasm and ability to inspire and motivate his co-workers and subordinates were legendary. A little more than two weeks after his death, on February 3, 1966, one of his brainchilds, the Luna 9 probe, soft-landed on the moon and sent back the first photographic data of earths closest celestial companion. It was a victory from the grave as well as a fitting epitaph. Although talented, Korolyov's successor, Mishin, was not able to lead the N-1 project the way his mentor might have done. Had Korolyov been allowed to live a couple of years longer, there might - there just have might - have been first a Hammer and Sicle on the Moon instead of a Stars and Stripes:
MFBB.
UPDATE:
Some twenty years ago, when I was a student in Ghent, I bought this particular volume in some bookshop:
Its title is, as you can see, "Three paces beyond the horizon", and it contains a large number of anecdotal information (not too technical) on the lives and works of a host of Russian/Soviet rocket scientists and/or space pioneers.
It is a rather thin volume, perhaps half an inch thick, and the photo shows it about real size (okay, maybe it's slightly larger - but not much). Printing quality is atrocious (characters not aligned e.g.), the overall tone is too bookish, and there are obvious lapsuses here and there, starting with the cover itself: one gets no clue who exactly the gentlemen are on the assembled photo. I knew the man to the upper left is Konstantin Tsiolkovski, a famous theoretician who a.o. established that rockets would have to enter space burning up stages in the process. I just found out the fella below him must be Keldysh And the guy below Keldysh is Mikhail Yangel. In the upper right corner we find, of course, Sergei Korolyov. But about the other I'm not sure, though I suspect strongly the guy to the right of Yangel is Chelomei and the one below Korolyov Isaev.
But despite its flaws, I consider this book one of my prized possessions, indispensable in my library. And not only because through it, I got a fascinating glimpse of what went in Soviet space exploration during the Cold War. The fact that it was printed very shortly before the demise of the USSR means something to me too: it's a Time Document of an era which has come to a close.
In reality however, individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime were offered oil contracts through OFF. In short, Iraqi oil was secretly sold on the world market and the sellers were allowed to keep a transaction fee, allegedly worth between $0.15 and $0.50/barrel (0.94 and 3.14 $/m³) of oil sold. US Senate investigators estimate the revenue Saddams regime garnered via illicit OFF oil contracts at 13.6bn US$. In addition, it received 4.4 billion more through kickbacks and illegal surcharges on services and goods provided by companies contracted under the OFF programme. The scandal emerged in early 2004, when an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 people including UN officials, politicians and companies. Prominent among these was... the Executive Director of the UN OFF Programme, the Cypriot Benon Sevan , who explained the 
But from Greek drama it turned into a family drama when the investigations began to include Kofi's brother Kobina Annan, a Ghanaian ambassador, "family friend" Michael Wilson and more importantly, Kofi's son Kojo, who worked for the Swiss-based company Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. Sure, documents show that Kojo was not on Cotecna's payroll anymore from late 1998 on. But other documents prove that he mysterioulsy kept receiving payments from Cotecna not only through 1999, but also through 2000, 2001, 2002 and right through November 2003, when coincidentally the UN closed the OFF programme and hence there was no further need for Cotecna Services' services. Poor Kojo, according to his pops "an international businessman", had but a $30,000-a-year job. Still he managed to find a spare 250,000 US dollars somewhere to invest in a Swiss football club. Probably it was a gift from an aunt who shortly thereafter fell off the Kilimanjaro.
Credit for unearthing all this fascinating stuff goes largely to the Investigation Committee led by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who started working in April 2004. As we have seen you have Greek dramas and you have family dramas, but upon entering the Islamic World dramas have since two decades or so a habit of becoming increasingly not done. Possibly that's why Annans Pakistani Chief of Staff, Iqbal Riza, later referred to his seven-month-shredding-of-OFF-documents spree, which he curiously started the day after Volcker's team began to work, as destroying "simply extra copies" of records. In other words, nothing to be seen here folks, just move along. As a UN staffer working at the time at Mr. Riza's office testified, every day the U.N. Chief of Staff was present he 
Nothing new under the sun. To understand why an Annan-led U.N. has been pathetically unable to stop the Darfur genocide one needs to go back a decade. To early 1994 to be precisely, when Kofi Annan was Head of the UN's Department of Peackeeping Operations (DPKO). On January 11 of that year, the Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, operational commander of UN troops in Rwanda, cabled Annan: 
There is a lot to be said about responsibility for failing to quell the 1994 Rwandan genocide and virtually all involved had butter on their heads. 
Actually, taking into account the voting behaviour of the General Assembly the United States were a bit naïve there with their 2004 Darfur Genocide Yes or No Resolution. After all, in 2003 e.g., voting for 85 yes-or-no US proposals in the General Assembly went as follows: Arab League members voted no in 88.7% of the cases; ASEAN members voted no in 84.5% of the cases; Islamic Conference members voted no in 84.1% of the cases; African members voted no in 83.8% of the cases, and Non-Aligned Movement members voted no in 82.7% of the cases. Luckily for the US, they still had their old pals of the European Union, who voted yes in 45.5% of the cases. Keep in mind that Mrs. Fréchette, of ensuring the global community that such a descent into horror never again be permitted fame, 
The excellent French blog 
This summer and fall, the UN's Human Rights Council proved itself to be a worthy successor to its predecessor (the UNHR Commission, which included murderous regimes such as Burma, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Zimbabwe), since in three consecutive "Special Sessions", Israel was lambasted while the real agressors and provocators got a blanco check. And then we do not even talk about the Council totally ignoring the continuous state-sanctioned human rights abuses in Belarus, Burma, Cuba, China, Iran, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe.
A little known fact is also that Bolton was able to build coalitions in the UN. He forged one of 50 nations in the face of strong opposition by the so-called 
The killing in Darfur began in 2003. By summer 2004, there were an estimated 70,000 dead and 1,000,000 refugees (the numbers would rise to 250,000 and 2,000,000 respectively by fall of this year). Countless eyewitnesses confirmed the same scenario over and over and over again: villages bombed by the Sudanese Air Force, the survivors machinegunned by Sudanese gunships, then ethnic cleansing by janjaweed, including murder, rape and the burning alive of their victims... all of this with the support of the Sudanese Army. In Turtle Bay, in that same fateful summer of 2004, now more than two years ago, the UN Security Council voted in favor of a resolution threatening to impose sanctions if the Sudanese government did not stop atrocities in Darfur by the end of August. Elfatih Mohammed Ahmed Erwa, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, criticized the resolution for failing to recognize "improvements on the ground" and for pre-judging efforts by Sudan and the African Union to resolve the conflict peacefully, adding 
A few words about the Dutch presence under NATO-umbrella in Afghanistan. With 2,000 troops, The Netherlands is one of the main contributors to the ca. 20,000 strong ISAF-mission (not counting the ca. 11,000 US troops still operating within the framework of Operation Enduring Freedom - so ISAF and OEF count, taken together, some 31,000 troops). Over the past year, the Taliban have resurged again, mainly in the south, the centre and the east, and while US troops are mostly active in the east, the brunt of the fighting in Afghanistan's centre and its south is borne by the Canadians, the British, the Dutch and the Danes. The Canadians have about 2,000 troops (with armored support of 20 Leopard I-tanks), mainly in the Kandahar region, the 
Camp Holland near Tarin Kowt is the biggest Dutch base. Ultimately, some 1,000 Dutch and 400 Australians will be stationed here. The main component of the Dutch troops is infantry: two companies of airmobile and armored infantry, supported by specialists of other branches. Camp Holland is also home to the staff of Task Force Uruzgan, the Provincial Reconstruction Team, and the Apache-detachment (six Apache Longbow helicopters). Medical support is provided by a Role 2 enhanced hospitaal with operation room, intensive care, blood bank, pharmacy and röntgen laboratory.
A few words about the newest artillery platform on the Dutch Army's inventory: the "Pantserhouwitser 2000", a literal translation of the German "Panzerhaubitze 2000". The PzH2000 is indeed a German development using the chassis of the trusted Leopard MBT (Main Battle Tank). Specs are: length 11.7 metres, width 3.50 metres, height 3.46 metres; weight is 55.5 tonnes (battle-ready), speed 62 kloms per hour (on hard road, cross-country some 40 kloms per hour). The engine is an eight cilinder diesel developing 1,000 HP. The PzH2000 has a crew of 5 and is armed with a 155mm gun and a machinegun for self-defence. It replaces the old M-109 A2/90 and the improvement over this Cold War era artillery piece is vast: e.g., whereas the 109's range was a mere 18 kilometres, the PzH2000 can throw a charge away over 40 kilometers. The shells weigh 40 to 45 kilograms, but this poses no problem for the crew since charging is automatic. Apart from that, armour and speed are better, cross-country performance too and especially rate of fire. The Dutch Army has currently two Pantserhouwitsers in Afghanistan, of which one was used in September 
In the night of November 9 to 10, 1938, tens of thousands of Jews in Germany and Austria had their windows smashed out, as "ordinary" German citizens and SA-men went on a rampaging tour with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered with shards of glass. This infamous assault against a peaceful and contributing minority got to be known as the "Night of the Broken Glass" - 
At 9pm a group of Turkish youths gathered in the vicinity of the youth hostel. They shouted anti-Jewish slogans and besieged the hostel, throwing stones and pieces of concrete through the windows. Police arrived on the scene "to ease the tensions" and by 10pm "the situation was under control". Thereupon a school teacher accompanying the chassidic youngsters decided not to stay for the night in Beringen and fetch the boys back to Antwerp by bus.
Offer apologies to the Jewish youths.... Beringen is a community with a lot of Turkish immigrants. In fact, during the municipal elections the main contest for the mayor's seat ook place between Marcel Mondelaers, of the Christian Democratic Party CD & V, and a resident of Turkish origin, Selahattin Koçak, of the Socialist Party SP.a. Koçak stood a very good chance of becoming the first mayor of immigrant origin of a Belgian town, but his socialist party was in extremis beaten by the christian democrats with a difference of... 0.3%. Given the fact that indigenous Belgians, with a fertility rate of 1.5 children per woman, are on the road to extinction while the Turkish community with 3.5 children per woman is on the rise, Marcel Mondelaers may very well be Beringen's very last native Belgian mayor. Note, also, that Mr. Koçak preferred to throw in his lot with a socialist party. As I have already mentioned ad nauseam on these pages, it's striking how immigrants from a culture with archconservative views on the role of women in society, homosexual people, abortion and euthanasia and what not, time and again choose the side of leftist parties with views and values diametrically opposed to theirs.
Iter, I mean. Which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. OK, the decision to build 
Why split it? Because energy is freed in the process. Think of a U235 atom as a core made up of 235 little balls. 92 of them are loaded electrically positive – they are called protons, the red balls to the left. The remainder, 143, are electrically neutral – we call them neutrons, they are the yellow ones. When you look at the drawing you see the denomination U235/92. It's not the most correct analogy, but try to think in terms of weights relevant to a truck. That would be its maximum authorized weight (the sum of its own mass plus its payload), and what really matters, the payload itself. In the same manner, the atomic weights relevant to this particular Uranium atom are 235 (its maximum weight), and what really matters, the 92 protons. So you really have to understand that the 92 "weight" is also included in the 235! Or put differently, the maximum atomic weight, 235, is the sum of the "protonic" weight, 92, and the "neutronic" weight, 143. Well, when a neutron similar to the ones in that Uranium core is shot inside that core, the core becomes a 236-ball constituency – but only for a splitsplitsplitsplit second, since unstable. It breaks up. It breaks up into two smaller cores, one with 144 balls and one with 89 balls. The former is called a Barium atom (Ba), the latter a Krypton atom (Kr). But hold it! Oops, 144 + 89 = 233??? That’s right, the breakup process produced two lighter cores and 215MeV of energy but… three little balls went missing. All three of them neutrons again, flying away at a mighty speed and as luck will have it smacking into three other U-235 atoms, which will again split and produce 3 x 215MeV = 645 MeV! Which is what is called a self-sustaining chain reaction. More details with excellent graphs 
Now fusion. Fusion is the process whereby energy is released not by splitting atom cores, but, on the contrary, by fusing them! The cores to be fused are Deuterium and Tritium, and please, don't run away now, it really isn't that complicated! Above we have already met the Uranium atom, one of the heavier atoms, consisting a.o. of 92 protons. Well, the very simplest atom has just one proton, and is called Hydrogen (H). Coupled with two Oxygen (O) atoms, Hydrogen forms a fluid we use tens of litres of each day - water: H2O. Now, while a Hydrogen atom thus consists of a core with just one positively laden proton (and one negatively laden electron circling around it), there are hydrogen atoms with heavier cores, because the sole proton is accompanied by either one electrically neutral neutron, and then we speak of Deuterium, or either two, and then we speak of Tritium. Deuterium and Tritium are the two isotopes of Hydrogen: the core's electrical charge is the same (in all three cases only one proton), but the weights differ. See the picture above, which is from the 
When deuterium and tritium fuse, for a brief instant they form an unstable nucleus of two protons and three neutrons, or a Helium atom with a mass of 5. This bursts apart as seen in the figure to the left, in a stable 4He helium nucleus (core consisting of two protons and two neutrons) with 3.5 MeV (1 MeV = 1 million eV) of kinetic energy swerving off in one direction, and a neutron with four times as much energy, 14.1 MeV, going off in the other. With its positive charge the helium 4He nucleus, also called an alpha particle (the so-called alpha rays, with a very low penetration ability, are merely rays of helium atoms), interacts strongly with surrounding material and stops rapidly, depositing 3.5 MeV of heat close to the site of the fusion reaction. The electrically neutral neutron can only slow down by colliding with other nuclei, transferring small amounts of kinetic energy to each just as a cue ball when it hits a pool ball, until finally the neutron is absorbed by some atom's nucleus, potentially several meters from the original fusion reaction. Thus, fusion results in kinetic energy transforming in heat. So far so good. However, in order to make Deuterium and Tritium to collide like that, one needs to put much more energy first. 
E.g., while not exactly a reactor, the so-called 
The horizontal axis depicts rising atomic mass numbers. So the more to the right you go, the heavier the atom. To the extreme left on that axis you'll find thus Hydrogen and its isotopes, to the extreme right heavy atoms like Uranium. The vertical axis stands for the energy binding together protons and neutrons in a core. This is thus also the energy freed either through fusion or fission. On the fusion "side", the higher the graph goes, the higher the binding energy, and you can see that the "ideal" zone corresponds with a mass number between 40 and 100. On the fission side, towards the right, the graph goes downhill. This is all theory of course. Theoretically, if you'd fuse somewhat heavier atoms than the ultralight hydrogen isotopes, you'd get more power ouput. Similarly, if you'd split lighter atoms than Uranium, you'd also get more output. In practice however, for a variety of reasons, uranium is used for fission and deuterium/tritium for fusion. Keep in mind though that a mixture of Deuterium and the heavier Helium is also considered to be a possible fusion fuel.
In a Tokamak the hot plasma is held in its place, not touching any solid matter, by strong toroidal and poloidal magnetic fields, see figure to the right. Absolutely necessary for the toroidal field is the huge central solenoid magnet. The poloidal field however... is generated by a large current, up to several million amperes, which flows through the plasma. This current is first induced by transformers and, after that, must be maintained "by non-inductive current drive or by self-generation of currents inside the plasma". Actually it's crazy: imagine that with a couple of colleagues all wearing isolating gloves and standing in a circle all of you try to hold an incredibly hot donut shaped balloon in place, one which writhes frantically to expand/explode, and you are still far off.
So, what does a Tokamak reactor look like from the inside? The photo shows the interior of an American Tokamak, the 
