[rcxdude]

IIRC the one of the first times a group put timelines to a fusion reactor they had time vs funding level of something like 20 years/50 years/never, and the funding level that actually materialised was below the 'never' amount and yet it started the 'always 20 years away' joke. Now I think the timeline was probably still optimistic but fusion is also obviously a very expensive thing to develop and while it's gotten a lot of funding it's still at the 'in the background' level.

[eMPee584]

Plasma physics (magnetohydrodynamics / turbulance) turned out to be a bigger challenge then expected, but it's not far fetched to assume we would be somewhat further along had the funding been closer to one of the "more ambitious" curves.

Here's them infamous 1976 budget scenarios: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._historical_fusi...