/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8233516
>self replicating machines
are a legitimate solution to the problem of industrializing space. No, we don't need nanotech to make them. You don't need nanotech to make a big automated factory capable of making a copy of itself.

NASA has investigated the possibility of making robotic factories on the moon capable of manufacturing copies of themselves from lunar regolith and found it to be plausible. The only 'resources' the factory uses are sunlight and lunar regolith. One could have said system construct rockets(magnesium+waste oxygen from reducing regolith), but in literature electromagnetic launchers are preferred.

www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/880Chirikjian.pdf

This has the potential to severally decrease the amount of mass we need to launch from Earth, all we have to do is put one self-replicating factory up and we're set.

However, in the near term it's much more realistic to send up the components that are difficult to make and manufacture the heavier components from mass that's already up there.

It has been shown that it takes about 27 years for a very basic lunar mass driver to payback the launched mass of it's linear motor. Much of the mass of the motor is simple stuff which we could manufacturer in-situ. We need iron for the stator and frame, aluminum for the windings, and glass for insulation(if we really want to get fancy, just ship plastic insulation from earth). All of that is available from lunar regolith.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110007073.pdf

>>6217500
monoliths are a dumb idea! A big dumb piece of black? Fuck now, it needs to have arms, solar panels, chemical plants and shit

Totally won't be a monolith.

>>6037227
>>This is because the most expensive/complicated components will come from Earth's surface
If you have people living in space, you're gonna try everything you can not to up-port stuff from a gravity well, because upporting is expensive.

The only thing that might be upporting would be microchips, they're light and very valuable.

However, there's no reason they couldn't be produced in space. In fact, some silicon refining processes are gravity limited

>>the complicated and somewhat new space manufacturing equipment.
Can be done with late 70s tech. Check out these space manufacturing studies:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/manufacturing/library.htm

>>Materials processing could take place on the mineral transport ships while they're en route from the asteroid belt
bad idea, you'd be delta V'ing a whole bunch crap that would be best to dump overboard. Supporting solar mirrors is hard during acceleration

>>5183293
>>>magic replicators
Or you just use conventional manufacturing processes like machining, molding, vapor deposition, and what not to make components.

You could also use less conventional manufacturing processes like laser sintering, electron beam melting, and electron beam cutting.

Did I mention one can make solar cells from regolith? I did, in this post here:
>>5183175

>>4317385
Contributing

www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

>>4047756
DID SOMEBODY JUST SAY SELF REPLICATING ROBOTS?

Was that from sometime in the 1980s perhaps when the Advanced Automation For Space Missions summer study was going on?

I request more info.

Self-replicating robots

>>3880749
well if you look closely at photovoltaic cell case, it's only slightly better than placing solar cells in a desert. Though the advantage of this is that it doesn't need to be located in a desert.

>>3880852
I'm calling bullshit on that
>>- less buoyancy at increased altitude
the highest balloons have been flown is 53 kilometers, stratosolar flys at 20 kilometers.
>>-resistance vs chemical attack (ozone, UV damage, extreme temps)
20 km high ain't anywhere near the thermosphere... 8 ppm concentrations of ozone at low pressures and temperatures isn't going to be all that corrosive.

>>3789857

http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/3.14.htm

It's from the guy who designed the self-replicating lunar factory. Pic related.

>>3550143

*sigh*

>>2379211
Rocket 1: self-replicating robot factory
Rockets 2 - 11: people, plant seeds, fish, algae, some cows, and cow embryos. Then use rest of available mass for grandfather clocks.

>>2209855
because NASA got their funding taken away when they tried to build space colonies.

>>2179631
We have the money(the entirety of NASA's budget cost less than buying tents for soldiers in Afghanistan), we have the resources(what resources are so scarce they make space travel impractical), and we pretty much have the technology(space colonies could be made with 1970s era technology).