(November 5, 2014 at 11:40 am)FifthElement Wrote: We are at the dawn of the new age
3D printing is slowly but surely taking over.
As all other technologies it will become more sophisticated and in some time the idea of self-replicating machines will become reality
Imagine a spaceship/probe which is capable of landing on the destination planet (we'll probably start with our Moon as testing ground) and use planet/moon resources to build multiple replicas of itself via 3D printing and those replicas soon after would be leaving the planet in question in search for another planet where they can build more of them self, and so on, and so on ...
According to some calculations they would self-replicate through entire Milky Way galaxy in about 1 million years.
Looks to me like a feasible way to explore the galaxy, more so then any other way imagined till now
What do you guys think about it ?
You've come up with a twist to the Fermi paradox there.
Not only are aliens not here, but there are no self replicating machines of their making here either.
This might be an even 'stronger' form of Fermi's paradox, btw. It would be plausible most/all aliens might be put off by the the long timescale (assuming they would view a few million years that way) of galactic colonization, but presumably, they would not have much in the way of those feelings in regards to the machines they make.
That neither the aliens, nor their (possibly) precursor self replicating machines are here, in my opinion, firms up Fermi's little observation quite a bit more.
(and I already viewed it as pretty stern stuff)
