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Here's what I wish we'd do in space in the next 100 years: - Make industrial-scale self-reproducing robots, and send them to an asteroid. - Build more robots o

Here's what I wish we'd do in space in the next 100 years: - Make industrial-scale self-reproducing robots, and send them to an asteroid. - Build more robots out of that asteroid, send robots to next nearest asteroid. - Build a ringworld out of asteroid and robot parts. The great thing about space being so enormously big, is that .. once you get off Earth .. you've got so much of it to play with. Send some of these robots to the rings of Saturn, get as much water together as possible, take your fish-tank and get on with it .. We have the technology to do this. We truly do. We just don't have the will.

mino 11y ago
Are you referring to Von Neumann probes? Also see Carl Sagan's response [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Vo...
nxzero 11y ago
Please provide an explanation of what form "self-reproducing robots" would take based on the "tech we've got" in a way that applies to the context you've provided.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  Put 250 million bucks into this idea: http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/ http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/ Locate richest mineral resource in near-Earth neighborhood. Apply rockets. Build new rockets. I know, it is 'just a fantasy', but .. y'know .. it was once 'just a fantasy' that we'd all have Internet terminals glued to our heads, and look how fast we got that one, once the will-power was there ..
kabdib 11y ago
> We have the technology to do this We're not even close to being able to make self-reproducing robots. Even a simple robot requires a huge supply chain. Take, say, the photoresists used in chip manufacture -- that's an entire chemical industry that you need to box up. That little industry has a bunch of needs on its own. Okay, box those up, too. Repeat. Now let's do insulation for wires . . . or batteries. It takes a lot more than a village to make a robot, it pretty much takes a country. Probably several, given how suitable raw materials are so inconveniently spread around (and often, hard to find, so I guess we need to add some kind of prospecting facility now). Short of general-purpose nano-assemblers, which are likely to remain science fiction for quite some time, you'll not put a self-reproducing robot into a probe-sized package any time soon.
- tim333 11y ago
  Ok, we're not close just now but at some point during the next 100 years perhaps?
  - kabdib 11y ago
    It's hard to project 30 years out. Ask Charles Stross (he's written near-future SF, and -- I'm probably misrepresenting him -- has said he's abandoned story lines because technology caught up with his predictions). Predicting 100 years is pretty much impossible. But absent "nanotech" or "micro-mechanical biotech" or some similar game-changing advance, self-replicating machines will need to incorporate self-replication of so much of their technology base that they will basically look like factories. Now, there's nothing wrong with a self-replicating factory, but it's not portable and cuddly, and you can't stick it on a rocket and launch it (not in one piece, anyway). I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
    - KineticLensman 11y ago
      Stross (who is active on HN) explores the subject of abandoning stories in some detail on his blog, e.g. regarding the Halting State series [1]. He also describes here how political uncertainty can kill a story; in this case uncertainty regarding the outcome of the 2014 Scottish Independence vote. Halting State books 1 and 2 are set in a near-future independent Scotland, but were written well before the vote happened. Regarding Halting State 3, he said (2013) "In just two years the map of the Scottish near future will have changed, unpredictably and drastically, from where it is now. I therefore conclude that there is simply no point in my starting to write..." [EDIT: added quote, made it clear that it was the third book in a sequence that was canned] [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...
      - Grishnakh 11y ago
        It sounds like he set his story too near in the future. Set your story 25-50 years into the future and then you can make reasonable predictions and avoid political things ruining them, for the most part (until a couple of decades have passed). Scottish independence could still happen, just not in the next couple of years. But in 30 years, it's possible. That far out, the state of the entire EU is in serious doubt. Look at 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. In 1969, it looked like a fairly reasonable prediction of what things would be like in 2001 (42 years away), given the rate of change at the time in aerospace technology. By 1974, it still didn't look too bad. It didn't start looking overly optimistic until probably the late 80s, 20 years later. Also, if Stross is one of those writers who makes multi-book story arcs spanning over a decade (like Herbert did with the Dune series), that's a sure recipe for total failure when doing near-term sci-fi. Stuff just changes too fast; Herbert's stuff worked sorta-Ok because Dune was set 8000 years in the future (IIRC), but even there one big premise was the idea of genetic memories, which were postulated when he started, but eventually disproven with greater knowledge of genetics, probably before he finished his last book. This is stuff like Blade Runner worked well: it was a singular story, set about 35 years into the future. At the time, it looked like a somewhat reasonable depiction of 35 years in the future, though rather grim. Of course, now it's almost 2017 and things don't look anything like that, so it's interesting to watch from a historical perspective. It is a little disturbing that they now want to milk it with a sequel after all this time, when obviously things aren't going to look anything like that in 1 year, but I guess I can ignore it like I ignore the Matrix sequels.
pjc50 11y ago
We have the technology to do this. We truly do. I'm not sure we do. Space fabrication is a business we've only just started in. We've done IKEA-in-space to make the ISS, and we're just about at the stage of growing veg on it. We've experimented with sintering of lunar dust on earth. That's really about it. We've not manufactured so much as a bolt in actual space, let alone built the IC fabrication infrastructure that would be required for robots.
- cmurf 11y ago
  Yeah I think we need replicators, self-sealing stem bolts, programmable shape shifting materials, etc. I like the imagination that movies like Outland instilled, but realistically putting a full blown mining and smelt operation onto another world, even the moon? If we have a cable car all the way to moon, OK, but rockets?
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    The funny part about Outland is that it assumed men in the future doing offworld mining would all sport 70s hairstyles and smoke like chimneys. Go watch it again and look at the scene where they're having a meeting: the smoke is so thick in the conference room you can barely see anyone! Of course, that movie had some other really serious problems: it seemed to assume that there was artificial gravity, but that it only worked inside the station, and stopped at the roof (so when a guy is walking around inside a tunnel, he's at Earth-normal gravity, but when another guy is making an ambush for him on the outside roof of this tunnel, he's in microgravity).
Gravityloss 11y ago
Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanking_replicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanking_replicator

mino 11y ago

Are you referring to Von Neumann probes? Also see Carl Sagan's response [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Vo...

nxzero 11y ago

Please provide an explanation of what form "self-reproducing robots" would take based on the "tech we've got" in a way that applies to the context you've provided.

fit2rule 11y ago
Put 250 million bucks into this idea: http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/ http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/ Locate richest mineral resource in near-Earth neighborhood. Apply rockets. Build new rockets. I know, it is 'just a fantasy', but .. y'know .. it was once 'just a fantasy' that we'd all have Internet terminals glued to our heads, and look how fast we got that one, once the will-power was there ..

kabdib 11y ago

> We have the technology to do this We're not even close to being able to make self-reproducing robots. Even a simple robot requires a huge supply chain. Take, say, the photoresists used in chip manufacture -- that's an entire chemical industry that you need to box up. That little industry has a bunch of needs on its own. Okay, box those up, too. Repeat. Now let's do insulation for wires . . . or batteries. It takes a lot more than a village to make a robot, it pretty much takes a country. Probably several, given how suitable raw materials are so inconveniently spread around (and often, hard to find, so I guess we need to add some kind of prospecting facility now). Short of general-purpose nano-assemblers, which are likely to remain science fiction for quite some time, you'll not put a self-reproducing robot into a probe-sized package any time soon.

tim333 11y ago
Ok, we're not close just now but at some point during the next 100 years perhaps?
- kabdib 11y ago
  It's hard to project 30 years out. Ask Charles Stross (he's written near-future SF, and -- I'm probably misrepresenting him -- has said he's abandoned story lines because technology caught up with his predictions). Predicting 100 years is pretty much impossible. But absent "nanotech" or "micro-mechanical biotech" or some similar game-changing advance, self-replicating machines will need to incorporate self-replication of so much of their technology base that they will basically look like factories. Now, there's nothing wrong with a self-replicating factory, but it's not portable and cuddly, and you can't stick it on a rocket and launch it (not in one piece, anyway). I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
  - KineticLensman 11y ago
    Stross (who is active on HN) explores the subject of abandoning stories in some detail on his blog, e.g. regarding the Halting State series [1]. He also describes here how political uncertainty can kill a story; in this case uncertainty regarding the outcome of the 2014 Scottish Independence vote. Halting State books 1 and 2 are set in a near-future independent Scotland, but were written well before the vote happened. Regarding Halting State 3, he said (2013) "In just two years the map of the Scottish near future will have changed, unpredictably and drastically, from where it is now. I therefore conclude that there is simply no point in my starting to write..." [EDIT: added quote, made it clear that it was the third book in a sequence that was canned] [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-...
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      It sounds like he set his story too near in the future. Set your story 25-50 years into the future and then you can make reasonable predictions and avoid political things ruining them, for the most part (until a couple of decades have passed). Scottish independence could still happen, just not in the next couple of years. But in 30 years, it's possible. That far out, the state of the entire EU is in serious doubt. Look at 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. In 1969, it looked like a fairly reasonable prediction of what things would be like in 2001 (42 years away), given the rate of change at the time in aerospace technology. By 1974, it still didn't look too bad. It didn't start looking overly optimistic until probably the late 80s, 20 years later. Also, if Stross is one of those writers who makes multi-book story arcs spanning over a decade (like Herbert did with the Dune series), that's a sure recipe for total failure when doing near-term sci-fi. Stuff just changes too fast; Herbert's stuff worked sorta-Ok because Dune was set 8000 years in the future (IIRC), but even there one big premise was the idea of genetic memories, which were postulated when he started, but eventually disproven with greater knowledge of genetics, probably before he finished his last book. This is stuff like Blade Runner worked well: it was a singular story, set about 35 years into the future. At the time, it looked like a somewhat reasonable depiction of 35 years in the future, though rather grim. Of course, now it's almost 2017 and things don't look anything like that, so it's interesting to watch from a historical perspective. It is a little disturbing that they now want to milk it with a sequel after all this time, when obviously things aren't going to look anything like that in 1 year, but I guess I can ignore it like I ignore the Matrix sequels.

pjc50 11y ago

We have the technology to do this. We truly do. I'm not sure we do. Space fabrication is a business we've only just started in. We've done IKEA-in-space to make the ISS, and we're just about at the stage of growing veg on it. We've experimented with sintering of lunar dust on earth. That's really about it. We've not manufactured so much as a bolt in actual space, let alone built the IC fabrication infrastructure that would be required for robots.

cmurf 11y ago
Yeah I think we need replicators, self-sealing stem bolts, programmable shape shifting materials, etc. I like the imagination that movies like Outland instilled, but realistically putting a full blown mining and smelt operation onto another world, even the moon? If we have a cable car all the way to moon, OK, but rockets?
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  The funny part about Outland is that it assumed men in the future doing offworld mining would all sport 70s hairstyles and smoke like chimneys. Go watch it again and look at the scene where they're having a meeting: the smoke is so thick in the conference room you can barely see anyone! Of course, that movie had some other really serious problems: it seemed to assume that there was artificial gravity, but that it only worked inside the station, and stopped at the roof (so when a guy is walking around inside a tunnel, he's at Earth-normal gravity, but when another guy is making an ambush for him on the outside roof of this tunnel, he's in microgravity).

Gravityloss 11y ago

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanking_replicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanking_replicator