There are a number of physics issues in a burning plasma experiment that can possibly provide common ground between fusion and space and astrophysical plasma physics despite the fact that the plasma parameters in these diverse environments are often profoundly different. These include:

1. The interaction of trapped and circulating alpha particles with Alfven waves and what such studies can teach us about the microstability of solar coronal and solar wind plasmas or the ballooning stability of magnetotail plasmas
2. Collisionless reconnection mechanisms underlying sawtooth oscillations (which can have a potentially deleterious effect on alpha particle confinement) and what they can teach us about analogous space and astrophysical phenomena such as magnetospheric substorms, impulsive solar flares, and the dynamo effect
3. The transport of particles, energy and radiation in burning plasmas, involving, for instance, high-Z particle and radiation transport in a weakly collisional regime, the generation of energetic electrons in a high-current disruption, or the effect of local gradients of plasma flow on energy transport, and the implications of such findings in several space and astrophysical contexts.