03-10-2012, 12:07 AM
SETI and Self-Reproducing Probes
It was back in the 1980s when Robert Freitas came up with a self-reproducing probe concept based on
the British Interplanetary Society’s Project Daedalus, but extending it in completely new directions. Like
Daedalus, Freitas’ REPRO probe would be fusion-based and would mine the atmosphere of Jupiter to acquire
the necessary helium-3. Unlike Daedalus, REPRO would devote half its payload to what Freitas called its
SEED package, which would use resources in a target solar system to produce a new REPRO probe every
500 years. Probes like this could spread through the galaxy over the course of a million years without
further human intervention.
A Vision of Technological Propagation
I leave to wiser heads than mine the question of whether self-reproducing technologies like these will ever be feasible,
or when. My thought is that I wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility for cultures significantly more advanced than ours,
but
the question is a lively one, as is the issue of whether artificial
intelligence will ever take us to a ‘Singularity,’ beyond
which robotic generations move in ways we cannot fathom. John Mathews discusses self-reproducing probes, as we saw
yesterday, as natural extensions of our early planetary explorer craft, eventually being modified to carry out inspections
of the vast array of objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=21994
It was back in the 1980s when Robert Freitas came up with a self-reproducing probe concept based on
the British Interplanetary Society’s Project Daedalus, but extending it in completely new directions. Like
Daedalus, Freitas’ REPRO probe would be fusion-based and would mine the atmosphere of Jupiter to acquire
the necessary helium-3. Unlike Daedalus, REPRO would devote half its payload to what Freitas called its
SEED package, which would use resources in a target solar system to produce a new REPRO probe every
500 years. Probes like this could spread through the galaxy over the course of a million years without
further human intervention.
A Vision of Technological Propagation
I leave to wiser heads than mine the question of whether self-reproducing technologies like these will ever be feasible,
or when. My thought is that I wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility for cultures significantly more advanced than ours,
but
the question is a lively one, as is the issue of whether artificial
intelligence will ever take us to a ‘Singularity,’ beyond
which robotic generations move in ways we cannot fathom. John Mathews discusses self-reproducing probes, as we saw
yesterday, as natural extensions of our early planetary explorer craft, eventually being modified to carry out inspections
of the vast array of objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=21994