Ignition on the National Ignition Facility: a historical perspective

This is the first in a series of three talks that describe the recent historic achievement of ignition – a burning fusion plasma that produced more energy than was delivered by the laser. This talk will summarize the 60-year path that led up to ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), highlighting the broad international collaboration, physics "firsts", development of enabling technologies and construction of the NIF. The subsequent talks will describe the ignition experiments and implications for the future.