great idea: make a fleet of robotic, slowly self replicating space robots that travel the galaxy and leave these on every rocky planet, moon or asteroid they can find ;)
great idea: make a fleet of robotic, slowly self replicating space robots that travel the galaxy and
let's think. we need to build them from materials that are ubiquitous in the universe. you can get silicon compounds on most rocky asteroids, as well as some metals, water on comets which means hydrogen and oxygen - that's technically enough to have self reproducing micromechanical systems with semiconductor circuitry and solar panels, and possibly even some ice based reaction control thrusters. that's technically enough to spread inside a solar system and paint it with mckillroy was here's but we need something for interstellar travel ... would solar sails work? it would be good to have a really high isp drive for the outer fringes of solar systems, because that's where more ice and interesting asteroids are, but there's not enough sunlight. but heavy elements for nuclear drives you only find within a planetary crust...
a functioning mini-fusion reactor would really help.
let's think. we need to build them from materials that are ubiquitous in the universe. you can get
but if we leave out the fusion tech - I'd say the long poles are a) resource extraction from ore in micro gravity and building and b) autonomous micro fab that can replicate itself as well as all components needed for a) - 3d printing (laser sintering, chip manufacturing on wavers, ...) is already solved in theory and as individual tasks, even in micrpogravity (there's a 3d printer on the space station proof of concept) but everything needs to be tested in microgravity, too during prototyping. I'd say 2 teams of 20 people each - top grade scientists, 5 years plan (but let's be realistic, we need funding for 10) plus space launches, but you can get a microsat launched for a few 100k now with SpaceX, will drop further with starship 1 mio $ per year and top scientist - times 20, times 10 -> 200 m $ for wages 100 m $ for space launches 200 m $ for prototypes and material, workshops/machines/factory floor and computing power (need to train neural networks and shit) I'd say if we get 500 million $ funding, we can get project "mc killroy was everywhere" of the floor. - we can probably start at the halfway mark and get the military interested once we have working prototypes for "other applications" and more funding, but I wouldn't wanna give them control of the project - so minimum is 250 mio $ - with a few stretch goals for cool merchandise we can ship to supporters (who doesn't want a self replicating aerial drone swarm)
What percentage does kickstarter take?
but if we leave out the fusion tech - I'd say the long poles are a) resource extraction from ore in
