Self-replicating machine
The future development of such technology is an integral part of several plans involving the mining of moons and asteroid belts for ore and other materials, the creation of lunar factories, and even the construction of solar power satellites in space.[25] Von Neumann's goal for his self-reproducing automata theory, as specified in his lectures at the University of Illinois in 1949,[22] was to design a machine whose complexity could grow automatically akin to biological organisms under natural selection.[26][27] Moore's "artificial living plants" were proposed as machines able to use air, water and soil as sources of raw materials and to draw its energy from sunlight via a solar battery or a steam engine.First was to send a self-replicating system to Saturn's moon Enceladus, which in addition to producing copies of itself would also be programmed to manufacture and launch solar sail-propelled cargo spacecraft.When Dyson revised and reprinted his lecture in 1979 he added proposals for a modified version of Moore's seagoing artificial living plants that was designed to distill and store fresh water for human use[30] and the "Astrochicken."In 1980, inspired by a 1979 "New Directions Workshop" held at Wood's Hole, NASA conducted a joint summer study with ASEE entitled Advanced Automation for Space Missions to produce a detailed proposal for self-replicating factories to develop lunar resources without requiring additional launches or human workers on-site.The reference design included small computer-controlled electric carts running on rails inside the factory, mobile "paving machines" that used large parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight on lunar regolith to melt and sinter it into a hard surface suitable for building on, and robotic front-end loaders for strip mining.[33][34][35] They proposed a colony of cooperating mobile robots 10–30 cm in size running on a grid of electrified ceramic tracks around stationary manufacturing equipment and fields of solar cells.Their proposal didn't include a complete analysis of the system's material requirements, but described a novel method for extracting the ten most common chemical elements found in raw desert topsoil (Na, Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Al, C, O2 and H2) using a high-temperature carbothermic process.Four phase I grants were awarded: In 2012, NASA researchers Metzger, Muscatello, Mueller, and Mantovani argued for a so-called "bootstrapping approach" to start self-replicating factories in space.Kalil connected this concept to what former NASA Chief technologist Mason Peck has dubbed "Massless Exploration", the ability to make everything in space so that you do not need to launch it from Earth.[47][48] In 2001, Jarle Breivik at University of Oslo created a system of magnetic building blocks, which in response to temperature fluctuations, spontaneously form self-replicating polymers.[53] The idea of an automated spacecraft capable of constructing copies of itself was first proposed in scientific literature in 1974 by Michael A. Arbib,[54][55] but the concept had appeared earlier in science fiction such as the 1967 novel Berserker by Fred Saberhagen or the 1950 novellette trilogy The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. van Vogt.[57] However, such factories are unlikely to achieve "full closure"[58] until the cost and flexibility of automated machinery comes close to that of human labour and the manufacture of spare parts and other components locally becomes more economical than transporting them from elsewhere.[59] However, with robust error correction, and the possibility of external intervention, the common science fiction scenario of robotic life run amok will remain extremely unlikely for the foreseeable future.
autonomous robotself-replicationnatureHomer JacobsonEdward F. MooreFreeman DysonJohn von NeumannKonrad ZuseK. Eric DrexlernanotechnologyEngines of CreationRobert FreitasRalph Merkleasteroidsolar power satellitesvon Neumann probeuniversal constructorcellular automataVon Neumann's Self-Reproducing Automata schemeWatsonself-replicatingnanorobotsassemblerscomputer architecturemachine toolsnumerical controlRepRapsRené DescartesChristina of SwedenSamuel ButlerErewhonGeorge Eliot'sImpressions of Theophrastus SuchWilliam Paleyteleological argumentquestion of who originally made a watchJohn BernalStephen Kleenerecursion theoryLionel Penroseself-replicating machinekinematicself-reproducing automatathought experimentScientific Americanself-reproducing automata theorynatural selectionsolar batterysteam engineSaturnEnceladussolar sailterraform the planetAstrochickenSanta Clara Universityexponentially increasingregolithstrip mininghydrofluoric acidleachingcastingplasterbasaltlaser cuttingasteroid miningchlorinealuminiumKlaus LacknerDiscover magazineNASA Institute for Advanced ConceptsHod LipsonCornell UniversityGregory ChirikjianJohns Hopkins UniversityGeneral DynamicsMetzgerIn Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)Thomas KalilOffice of Science and Technology PolicyMason PeckInternational Space StationNew York UniversityUniversity of OsloZellig HarrisNiklaus Wirthdeterministic context-free grammarBertrand du Castelstochastic grammarneural networksSelf-replicating spacecraftMichael A. Arbibscience fictionBerserkerFred SaberhagenThe Voyage of the Space BeagleA. E. van VogtProject Daedalusouter spaceartificial lifeevolutionerror correctionPhilip K. DickArthur C. ClarkeKarel ČapekR.U.R.John SladekE. M. ForsterThe Machine StopsK. Eric Drexler'sNick SzaboAutopoiesisGrey goo scenarioSelf-reconfiguring modular robotAI takeover3D printingComputer virusComputer wormEcophagyExistential risk from advanced artificial intelligenceLights out (manufacturing)NanoroboticsSpiegelman's MonsterRepRap projectSelf-reconfiguring and self-reproducing molecube robotsMichael Imhof VerlagSpringer Vieweg