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Come on, it's not that much of a stretch from where we are today. We're basically talking about a 3-D printer capable of printing itself, solar panels, an ion
by pklausler 11y ago
Come on, it's not that much of a stretch from where we are today. We're basically talking about a 3-D printer capable of printing itself, solar panels, an ion engine, and whatever it takes to grind up asteroid surfaces to gather raw materials for the printer.
In another comment, I described the odds of these probes arising as
P(probes) = 1 - (1 - P(a civ can launch a probe)) ^ N(civ)
and unless P(can launch) is zero, not just really small, I think that we can conclude that N(civ) is not a very large number.
- krapp 11y ago>We're basically talking about a 3-D printer capable of printing itself, solar panels, an ion engine, and whatever it takes to grind up asteroid surfaces to gather raw materials for the printer. ...and continuing to do so reliably for millions of years, somehow being able to efficiently fabricate arbitrary components of exceeding strength and complexity out of dust and ice, without any appreciable loss in quality of hardware or software, even in the radioactive environment of interstellar space. Just because a model is mathematically consistent doesn't mean it's practically feasible.
- noselasd 11y agoIt takes the combined work of millions of people to even create the simplest 3D destktop printer as of today, you're not going to produce one that travels to extraterrestrial bodies and replicates itself anytime soon.