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Such a machine violates no physical laws, and we already possess the basic technologies necessary for some of the more detailed proposed designs.
A self-replicating machine would need to have the capacity to gather energy and raw materials, process the raw materials into finished components, and then assemble them into a copy of itself. It is unlikely that this would all be contained within a single monolithic structure, but would rather be a group of cooperating machines or an automated factory that is capable of manufacturing all of the machines that make it up. The factory could produce mining robots to collect raw materials, construction robots to put new machines together, and repair robots to maintain itself against wear and tear, all without human intervention or direction. The advantage of such a system lies in its ability to expand its own capacity rapidly and without additional human effort; in essence, the initial investment required to construct the first clanking replicator would have an arbitrarily large payoff with no additional cost.
The idea of non-biological self-replicating systems was first seriously suggested by mathematician John von Neumann in the late 1940s when he proposed a kinematic self-reproducing automaton model as a thought experiment. See von Neumann, J., 1966, The Theory of Self-reproducing Automata, A. Burks, ed., Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
In 1980, NASA conducted a summer study entitled Advanced Automation for Space Missions, edited by Robert Freitas, to produce a detailed proposal for self-replicating factories to develop lunar resources without requiring additional launches or human workers on-site. The proposed system would have been capable of exponentially increasingIn mathematics, a quantity that grows exponentially is one that grows at a rate proportional to its size. Anything that grows by the same percentage every year (or every month, day, hour etc. is growing exponentially. For example, if the average number of productive capacity. The design could be modified to build Von Neumann probeA Von Neumann probe is a fictional or hypothetical self-replicating machine, specifically designed for space exploration or colonisation. It is named after John Von Neumann ( 1903 1957), a Hungarian-born American mathematician and physicist who was the fis to explore the galaxy.
The reference design specified small computer-controlled electric carts running on rails. Each cart could have a simple hand or a small bull-dozer shovel, forming a basic robot.
Power would be provided by a "canopy" of solar cells supported on pillars. The other machinery could run under the canopy.
A " castingThis article is about the manufacturing process. In entertainment, casting is a pre-production process for selecting a cast of actors and other talent for a live or recorded performance. See also Cast (computer science) for explicit type conversion and ca robot" would use a robotic arm with a few sculpting tools to make plasterThis article is about the building material. For the adhesive medical dressing, see Sticking plaster. Plaster of Paris or simply plaster is a type of building material based on calcium sulfate hemihydrate, nominally (CaSO). It is created by heating gypsum moldMolding is the process of manufacturing by shaping pliable raw material using a rigid frame or model called a mold. A mold or mould is a hollowed-out block that is filled with liquid plastic, glass or metal. The liquid hardens or sets inside the mold, ados. Plaster molds are easy to make, and can make precise parts with good surface finishes. The robot would then cast most of the parts either from nonconductive molten rock ( basaltBasalt is an extrusive igneous rock, sometimes porphyritic, and is often both fine-grained and dense. Basalt in the tops of subaerial lava flows and cinders will often be highly vesiculated, imparting a lightweight "frothy" texture to the rock. The term b) or purified metals. An electric oven would melt the materials.
A more speculative, more complex "chip factory" was specified to produce the computer and electronic systems, but the designers also said that it might prove practical to ship the chips from Earth as if they were "vitamins."
Much of the design study was concerned with a simple, flexible chemical system for processing the ores, and the differences between the ratio of elements needed by the replicator, and the ratios available in lunar regolith. The element that most limited the growth rate was chlorine, needed to process regolith for aluminium. Chlorine is very rare in lunar regolith, so the design recycled it.