RE: 3D printing, self-replication and space travel
November 6, 2014 at 12:10 am
(This post was last modified: November 6, 2014 at 12:43 am by FifthElement.)
(November 5, 2014 at 11:31 pm)Jenny A Wrote: They don't turn raw unprocessed dirt into stuff. I can't imagine that anytime soon.
True, but we are talking about future here, maybe in few hundred years, when pretty much everything can be printed, including machines/robots for raw materials processing and extraction all the way to batteries, solar panels, mini nuclear reactors, printers, assembling robots and whatnot, all controlled by some kind of artificial intelligence ...
What is interesting here is a theoretical implications of this concept (self-replication) in relation to space exploration and it's advantages over other ideas how to cover vast distances between stars.
Here is the original article which inspired my initial post:
How Self-Replicating Spacecraft Could Take Over the Galaxy
(November 5, 2014 at 11:57 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: You've come up with a twist to the Fermi paradox there.
Not really my idea, been around for some time ...
Not really big fan of Fermi paradox, there are many potential reasons why we still did not encounter any of this technology from other civilizations
