"We thought of a clever idea of how you might use fusion to do manned space travel," explains John Slough. The University of Washington research professor discusses such seemingly impossible ideas with the cavalier nature one might otherwise reserve for picking out shirts in the morning. The white-haired academic wore his sandals to the office today, chuckling on occasion about the grandiosity of it all. Here in a nondescript business park in Redmond, WA, Slough and fellow UW staff members think they've found the secret to speedy interplanetary travel: small