At a 1971 meeting of fusion researchers, Ramy Shanny of the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) talked to Velikhov about his ideas. Shanny asked about how such a system would be stabilized against Rayleigh–Taylor instability during the collapse. Velikhov misunderstood the question, thinking he was asking how it would be stabilized against gravity within the drum. He replied that they would spin it. Shanny, believing Velikhov was saying spinning would address Rayleigh-Taylor problems, performed the calculations and found that it did indeed stabilize these instabilities.