[ExI] Meat v. Machine

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Sat Jan 1 19:03:07 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 10:14:55AM -0800, Samantha Atkins wrote:

> OK.  Design the robotics that can, say, repair the Hubble, 

We're not trying to repair the Hubble. We're trying to 
bootstrap (by the cheapest route) a system which can process
regolith and cryotrap volatiles into thin-film PVs and
start inching towards self-rep closure of unity and above.

(Oh, and by the way, if you think extravehicular activities
in suits are anything like you're familiar with, I have
bad, bad news for you. People have been deliberately ripping
their nails out, so they could work better. There is a very
good reason why the R2 thing is being built, and once it has
delegated the astronauts to the back seat they will suffer
the same fate as military pilots today, which are now grounded
with joysticks).

I do not know how to build such system, but I would approach
it from emergent flock behaviour (e.g. leafcutter ant colony)
perspective. You need the ant queen fabrication which does the
magic, large PV area to supply it with power, and many redundant
robotic platforms for material transport and assembly/disassembly.

Since this is UHV and power is (soon) abundant you would
probably use things like magnetrons/klystrons, E-beam writing,
rapid-prototyping techniques, (mostly) dry sorting and sifting,
hydrogen (from cryotrap water electrolysis) reduction, magnetic
and electrostatic sorting, melt electrolysis reduction, and
so on.

These are all largely automatable processes, requiring 
humans for coordination. Initially, you would want to
assign each robot to one human operator, rotated over
ground teams in different control centers over time
zones.

> do various space walk equivalent missions all with no 
> humans closer than earth.   Oh, the systems must be general 
> enough to be used for anything a trained human can do 

Not necessary. We're still in bootstrap.

> as far as physical capabilities are concerned.   
> All but rudimentary control you mention above is 
> done remotely.  Then get back to me.   

Yo, check dis out http://www.golem.de/1012/80216.html
(all 6 pages).
 
> > 
> >> resources before three decades from now we must build out human 
> >> support local space/lunar infrastructure.    
> > 
> > Humans are irrelevant. At least when it comes to space.
> > You want to go places, you have to stop wearing the
> > stupid man suit.
> 
> I just presented an argument why they are not yet irrelevant 

They are irrelevant because you will not be getting up
any any time soon, and they're double irrelevant as
soon as we're talking going beyond the inner solar
system.

> than you have not countered successfully.    The only 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The only
convincing argument would be a working facility.
You might see this within the next 30 years. Or not.

> general intelligence of sufficient power currently 
> around does not yet have the ability to shed its 
> biology.  So again, if you need more localized 
> general intelligence rather than at tens or thousands 
> of miles remove then you need humans in space - today.


 
> > 
> >> You need a lot of high mass initial equipment to lift from 
> > 
> > I disagree that you need to launch large (100 ton)
> > packages. I think you can work well with >100 kg
> > packages. With plasma thrusters you can probably
> > deliver one half to one third of LEO payload to 
> > Moon surface semi-softly. So a ton to LEO is a 
> > useful threshold.
> 
> Construction materials?  

In situ resources is called that for a reason.

> Large focusing antennae for SSP projects?  

Phased-array solid-state beamforming, with the 
panel backside doubling as antenna. Flat, no
movable parts.

> You can either do hundreds or thousands of launches 
> or you can do a relatively few large launches for 
> the acceleration hardened larger components.  The 

No monkeys, no large components. Struts, trusses,
thin-film, everyting modular.

> latter is cheaper in all ways and gets a larger 
> resource base in play much more quickly. 

Time is not the problem, money is. The boostrap will
be a slow-motion thing in the early phases of the
exponential, and there will be optimization and 
improvisation along the way. If it starts 20
years from now, the situation is completely different
20 years after.
 
> > 
> >> the gravity well in any any case to have a basis to built 
> >> from this side of mature nano-assembler seeds which are 
> >> at least 5 - 6 decades out.     It is a good question what 
> >> the minimal amount of lift needed is given the current tech 
> > 
> > We're well in excess of what we need. It would be nice
> > if prices would come down a bit, but that is not actually
> > relevant.
> 
> I don't see why you would claim that.  Many projects are not doable given today's launch cost and launch facility limitations.  

I'm not claiming that current lifters are sufficient
for all projects, I'm claiming they're fully sufficient
for this particular project. People who think that they
can do serius work without in situ resource utilization
and bootstrap are welcome to their way of doing things.

And this is all we're likely going to get, so we can
as well start planning that way. Surprises of the positive
kind might or might not materialize.
 
> > 
> > More importantly, you can start working now, as none of the
> > parts rely on particular features of transport system you're
> > going to use 15-20 years from now.
> > 
> 
> Which parts for precisely what?

When I order an expensive piece of hardware from Amazon 
the friendly delivery guy is doing a critical part, but 
it is not the most complicated part.
 
> On what?  What do you suggest launching that is off 
> the shelf now and for what purposes?

I outlined the system required to be ready and
tested before it can be fielded. The nature of the
launch vehicle doesn't really matter. Whether I send
packages by Post or DHL, it's not really relevant. 
They're exchangeable. The parcel is not.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list