[motoboi]

The gold thing houses the pellet. It’s needed because the lasers by itself cannot compress the pellet. It’s the heat from the lasers that causes the gold thing to compress the pellet to the infernal pressure needed to trigger fusion.

[tsimionescu]

Ok, but isn't the gold thing also essentially destroyed in the process? As far as I understand, for it to work,it has to be supremely smooth, or ot fails to generate the required patterns. Can it be re-used for a second pulse, after it is exposed to the thermal stress of the millions of kelvins and the mechanical stress of the explosion?

[motoboi]

Destroyed.

[tsimionescu]

So the extremely precisely machined piece of heavy metal is essentially part of the fuel. That seems like a no-go for commercial energy generation without any firther discussion.