destinyland writes "'We're going to have to do extensive robotic exploration,' says the director of NASA's Ames Research Center, suggesting nanotechnology to build self-replicating robots on Mars. Genetically engineering extraction and construction microbes could 'grow' electrical components, and eventually convert carbon dioxide on Mars into oxygen. 'If we really want to settle Mars, and we don't want to have to carry millions of tons of equipment with us to duplicate the way we live on Earth, these technologies will be key.' This interview with Peter Worden, the director of NASA's Ames Research Center, was just featured in the summer issue of H+ magazine, and he also argues that robots will be necessary to first survey Mars for underground microbes and protect the unique Martian biosphere, since it may contain clues about earth's own first life forms. In fact, given the water and carbon that's been discovered on Mars, the possibility of underground microbes is still considered real, and Worden argues that Mars 'may already be supporting life.'"
This is an interesting thought. Even without sci-fi endings, isn't it imaginable that robots such as these would be hard to stop? Is a Mars with zero CO2 preferable to what we have now? And if not, how are we going to kill them once we decide they're done? And, for bonus points, what will they think about that?
Terraforming kind of loses its purpose if you have to nuke the planet to oblivion afterwards. Unless of course you have a better way of generating a strong enough wave.
EMP != nuke even if you use a nuke to create it. It totally depends on altitude and whether you cause fallout from driving debris into the air. etc. That said if you're building a bunch of electroincs with these nanobots then they're probably not going to work post EMP.
You can design them to be wiped with an EMP, or to stop working when they're out of a specific magnetic field (and have such a magnetic field when you want them to work), a bit like some laboratory bacteria are made unable to synthesize proteins that they need so they can't survive in the wild. You could also make them solar powered and use a solar shade when you're done.
You can design them to be wiped with an EMP, or to stop working when they're out of a specific magnetic field (and have such a magnetic field when you want them to work), a bit like some laboratory bacteria are made unable to synthesize proteins that they need so they can't survive in the wild. You could also make them solar powered and use a solar shade when you're done.
Well, then they'll just build/generate their own magnetic field, or dismantle your solar shade machine...
With only wind and solar power they will be nothing more than helpless little hippies, ripe for a good hosing! Right? Please tell me that is true. I certainly don't want some granola-munching nanobots telling me what to do!
With only wind and solar power they will be nothing more than helpless little hippies, ripe for a good hosing! Right? Please tell me that is true. I certainly don't want some granola-munching nanobots telling me what to do!
I imagine they'll eventually learn to feed on human flesh.
Design them with only the storage capacity for caching a subset of the replication/operation program, and just continually broadcast the whole thing. Allows for quick bugfixes while you're at it.
Now, good luck figuring out the receiver...
... but most of the heavy lifting is going to come from genetically engineered microbes.
I've been following with interest the bacteria that was recently revived from the ice core samples. The assumption (logical or not) is that if they can survive that extreme situation they may be adapted to this sort of extreme condition.
With GE we can introduce traits, perhaps not as specific as we'd like, but still to tailor the needs. Bacteria that can break down iron oxide into Fe or other easily smeltable materials- that could extract gold (there has been some postulation that 'tracer' gold is nothing more than bacterial waste). We already have some plants that can selectively uptake metals and sequester them in the cellulose - but then breeding those with any other traits destroyed the character set that was capable of doing so.
I should also state I'm a fan of Mars from KSR- and if we start introducing extremophile bacterial colonies we may never find out if life evolved on that planet. I for one am waiting for that little tidbit and the Vatican's response (I expect it to be something along the lines of "Not intelligent thus God discarded the world as unsuitable", but I digress).
I say go for it... but I'd really really really want to know that the lab doing the work was fully set up to prevent accidental releases. While an extremophile may not like the conditions outside as too energetic... I'd hate to find out they're quickly adaptable - with those cell walls specifically thickened and hardened to handle UV (another assumption on my part) as well as low pressure they might just turn out to be a bitch to kill. Then again, keeping them in conflict with the UV sterilizer lights might just be the way to grow them hardier:)
I don't see the need for all of the complications. Going through all of that is completely pointless. Send me to Mars. I'll make robots for NASA if they send me a little food and water every once in a while. Hell, if anyone has ever met some of my ex-girlfriends they would know I'm completely immune to cold.
He basically said: "In order to colonize Mars, we will need to use Technology that doesn't exist yet but I bet that it'll probably be kind of like this."
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm not sure how this is newsworthy, since it's completely idle speculation.
Well, they did not go to the Moon using existing technology...
The technology needed to go to the moon was at least all pretty clear when we decided to do it. We'd already been up in space a few times. We knew how to make most of the bits and pieces we'd need, or at least knew exactly what the things we were missing would look like. We, at the least, knew where to start. In this case it really is pure speculation since we don't even know where to start in engineering the sort of nano technology he's talking about. Maybe 10 years from now something like this might
In May 1961, when the moon race was kickstarted by Kennedy, we knew next to nothing about putting a man on the Moon. We knew it should be possible, in theory. we spent billions and it happened despite the drawbacks.
Use one tenth of the Apollo's program budget, and you'll get self-replicating machines in the next ten years. Give it the same budget and you'll get them in 5 years, with 5 years left to miniaturize.
Seriously, has no one at NASA watched stargate? I can tell you how this ends.
1. NASA creates self replicating nanobot to perform a useful function 2. life form develops beyond their wildest dreams. 3. replicators begin attacking humans. 4. replicators begin to LOOK like humans. 5. O'neal sticks his face in some mind alterning THING that implants all the knowledge of the ancients. 6. O'neal makes BFG 3000 that can blast them, but it's not enough. 7. Daniel and Carter link all the stargates, creating one big distributed network (internet?) 8. Ba'al, big evil Goa'uld, knows the secret code to set off super-weapon in the temple where the Jaffa live... 9. 'super radiation' kills travels through all the portals across the universe, killing off the replicators.
So, someone go ahead and tell NASA to cut it out. Can't they see this ended badly? Somehow this lead to a new storyline with the stupid Oreye, Ori, whatever they are.
10) We find ANOTHER set of near identical replicators that were left in place by the ancients. 12) We figure out how to freeze them 13) They get un frozen and start to do their job of taking out the wraith by killing the food source (humans) 14) McKay figures out rather than breaking APART the nanites, we crank up their bond and suck them all into a black hole.
Maybe I've watched too much science fiction, but building self-replicating robots never seems to turn out quite the way you'd want. A few examples: the NS5 robots from I, Robot, the Decepticons - although those weren't man-made, and the Cylons. Is this something we want to recreate? Because humanity only survived the Cylon invasion thanks to the Galactica, so maybe NASA should think about building a few Battlestars before they go messing around with things they don't fully understand.
Hey, maybe that's wha
Self replicating nano-technology is far in the future, it is good NASA looks into it, but there is only one good thing I would take out of his proposal and apply it immediately : robots sent to Mars need to be autonomous. 20-40 minutes of lag is not a good way to drive a rover. Have a dozen of cheap rovers, give them a daily (or even hourly) schedule of things to do, and, for god's sake, let them do their things autonomously ! DARPA's Grand Challenge has proven since 2005 (or was it 2004 ?) that autonomous
Ignoring the robots-turning-evil angle on this, let's consider a more likely scenario. Probably any self replicating nano-things would be bacteria, or possibly very small machines that act like bacteria. I see two very likely scenarios that don't require any sort of thought, agency, or evil on their part:
1) Being designed to convert CO2 to O2, some of these things get carried back to earth (inside of human lungs, perhaps) and radically alter earth's atmosphere, or
2) They mutate and start metabolizing other things, like rocks or people.
Here come those replicators we heard about on SG1 or in that movie Screamers.....I thought we would have a little more time to set up before the onslaught started...!
How about we try it out here first? We have plenty of extra CO2 floating around that won't be missed, and I don't think anyone on Mars would complain if we do ours first.
in that, you look at your average list of requirements that nanotech is supposed to fulfill, and pretty much some microbe or insect already does most of that
i think to satisfy the requirements here, you start with a preexisting microbe to do all the terraforming requirements. and if its something bizarre like surveillance you want, you work that into an insect somehow. now if you are thinking using insects for surveillance on mars is insane, i'm saying i agree with you. only that genetically engineering a p
The Pathfinder was the size of toy car.
Spirit and Opportunity the size of golf cart.
Curosity (Mars Science Lab) is the size of an SUV.
This last one is is over two years late, a billion over budget, and tempting Congress to cut NASA's budget drastically.
First I read a Slashdot story about flesh eating robots and then one about some NASA guy who wants to make SELF-REPLICATING robots?? Hello?? Self-replicating flesh eating robots?? I mean! These things will live by The Three Laws: Kill em, Chop em up, Eat em!! I mean! Dood!! I know we have a population problem and all but! Dood!!!
If we get to the technology level we can build self-replicating nano machines that can survive and function outside very specific laboratory conditions / external energy input. The world would have already been long radically transformed by nanotechnology. Thus it makes the grey goo scenario unlikely (since we'd have the technology level to defend against this problem) and importantly, it means we would have long had the technology ability to go to mars more traditional ways easily and get a colony started.
Hmm... semi-serious-question: how much would it cost to just surround the Martian equator with a closed circuit of solar cells? And would that current generate a sufficient magnetic field?
Apparantly nobody at NASA has seen Battlestar Galactica. Come on - obviously these nano-machines will evolve into cylons (and you know they will take that name just to rub salt on the wound), come back, nuke us and then hunt us through space. Don't get me wrong, as long as I get to be the equivlant of Gaius Baltar and get Tricia Heffer I am not totally closed to this futuristic outcome.
It's unclear whether self-replicating "nanobots" are even possible to engineer, let alone possible to engineer in the next 50 years
Well, there is the existence proof of bacteria and other microbes. Whether we can make equivalent machines remains to be seen, but there's no physical law preventing it.
Finally (Score:4, Funny)
It has taken a while, but finally NASA is taking my plans to use an army of nanobots to build pyramids on Mars seriously.
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I'd go see that movie, seriously, but I know I'd probably be disappointed.
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Yeah, now it won't be long before they seriously consider my argument that nanobots already did build Egyptian structures [wikipedia.org] on Mars!
Until they turn against you (Score:4, Informative)
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This is an interesting thought. Even without sci-fi endings, isn't it imaginable that robots such as these would be hard to stop? Is a Mars with zero CO2 preferable to what we have now? And if not, how are we going to kill them once we decide they're done? And, for bonus points, what will they think about that?
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Probably, but if you miss even ONE, they'll rebuild and come back.
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Is an EMP effective against nanorobots?
Terraforming kind of loses its purpose if you have to nuke the planet to oblivion afterwards. Unless of course you have a better way of generating a strong enough wave.
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You can design them to be wiped with an EMP, or to stop working when they're out of a specific magnetic field (and have such a magnetic field when you want them to work), a bit like some laboratory bacteria are made unable to synthesize proteins that they need so they can't survive in the wild. You could also make them solar powered and use a solar shade when you're done.
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Or, or, or we could make them all female! And omit any frog DNA...
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You can design them to be wiped with an EMP, or to stop working when they're out of a specific magnetic field (and have such a magnetic field when you want them to work), a bit like some laboratory bacteria are made unable to synthesize proteins that they need so they can't survive in the wild. You could also make them solar powered and use a solar shade when you're done.
Well, then they'll just build/generate their own magnetic field, or dismantle your solar shade machine...
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With only wind and solar power they will be nothing more than helpless little hippies, ripe for a good hosing! Right? Please tell me that is true. I certainly don't want some granola-munching nanobots telling me what to do!
I imagine they'll eventually learn to feed on human flesh.
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Hurrah for the plan that'll eventually result in us requiring the creation of a "nuclear winter" scenario (or the sky blackening in Animatrix)!
Don't have them store their code. (Score:2)
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That would make them considerably more complex. Considering the infancy of this tech, I'd doubt it.
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Great Idea! Now lets see some self assembly... (Score:4, Interesting)
... but most of the heavy lifting is going to come from genetically engineered microbes.
I've been following with interest the bacteria that was recently revived from the ice core samples. The assumption (logical or not) is that if they can survive that extreme situation they may be adapted to this sort of extreme condition.
With GE we can introduce traits, perhaps not as specific as we'd like, but still to tailor the needs. Bacteria that can break down iron oxide into Fe or other easily smeltable materials- that could extract gold (there has been some postulation that 'tracer' gold is nothing more than bacterial waste). We already have some plants that can selectively uptake metals and sequester them in the cellulose - but then breeding those with any other traits destroyed the character set that was capable of doing so.
I should also state I'm a fan of Mars from KSR- and if we start introducing extremophile bacterial colonies we may never find out if life evolved on that planet. I for one am waiting for that little tidbit and the Vatican's response (I expect it to be something along the lines of "Not intelligent thus God discarded the world as unsuitable", but I digress).
I say go for it... but I'd really really really want to know that the lab doing the work was fully set up to prevent accidental releases. While an extremophile may not like the conditions outside as too energetic... I'd hate to find out they're quickly adaptable - with those cell walls specifically thickened and hardened to handle UV (another assumption on my part) as well as low pressure they might just turn out to be a bitch to kill. Then again, keeping them in conflict with the UV sterilizer lights might just be the way to grow them hardier :)
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I don't see the need for all of the complications. Going through all of that is completely pointless. Send me to Mars. I'll make robots for NASA if they send me a little food and water every once in a while. Hell, if anyone has ever met some of my ex-girlfriends they would know I'm completely immune to cold.
Only Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm not sure how this is newsworthy, since it's completely idle speculation.
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Well, they did not go to the Moon using existing technology...
The technology needed to go to the moon was at least all pretty clear when we decided to do it. We'd already been up in space a few times. We knew how to make most of the bits and pieces we'd need, or at least knew exactly what the things we were missing would look like. We, at the least, knew where to start. In this case it really is pure speculation since we don't even know where to start in engineering the sort of nano technology he's talking about. Maybe 10 years from now something like this might
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Use one tenth of the Apollo's program budget, and you'll get self-replicating machines in the next ten years. Give it the same budget and you'll get them in 5 years, with 5 years left to miniaturize.
Any other science fiction for us? (Score:5, Insightful)
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And more to the point, do we really want to ?
Re:Any other science fiction for us? (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, which is why we're now going to try doing it on Mars. Makes sense to me.
Parent
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Well, this guy [wikipedia.org] is evidence that somebody can.
News: NASA to create Replicators! (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, has no one at NASA watched stargate? I can tell you how this ends.
1. NASA creates self replicating nanobot to perform a useful function
2. life form develops beyond their wildest dreams.
3. replicators begin attacking humans.
4. replicators begin to LOOK like humans.
5. O'neal sticks his face in some mind alterning THING that implants all the knowledge of the ancients.
6. O'neal makes BFG 3000 that can blast them, but it's not enough.
7. Daniel and Carter link all the stargates, creating one big distributed network (internet?)
8. Ba'al, big evil Goa'uld, knows the secret code to set off super-weapon in the temple where the Jaffa live...
9. 'super radiation' kills travels through all the portals across the universe, killing off the replicators.
So, someone go ahead and tell NASA to cut it out.
Can't they see this ended badly?
Somehow this lead to a new storyline with the stupid Oreye, Ori, whatever they are.
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10) We find ANOTHER set of near identical replicators that were left in place by the ancients.
12) We figure out how to freeze them
13) They get un frozen and start to do their job of taking out the wraith by killing the food source (humans)
14) McKay figures out rather than breaking APART the nanites, we crank up their bond and suck them all into a black hole.
Self-replicating robots... (Score:2, Funny)
Not really important (Score:2)
Evil not included (Score:3, Interesting)
Ignoring the robots-turning-evil angle on this, let's consider a more likely scenario. Probably any self replicating nano-things would be bacteria, or possibly very small machines that act like bacteria. I see two very likely scenarios that don't require any sort of thought, agency, or evil on their part:
1) Being designed to convert CO2 to O2, some of these things get carried back to earth (inside of human lungs, perhaps) and radically alter earth's atmosphere, or
2) They mutate and start metabolizing other things, like rocks or people.
I am feeling sick... (Score:2)
Here come those replicators we heard about on SG1 or in that movie Screamers.....I thought we would have a little more time to set up before the onslaught started...!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety [wikipedia.org]
;)
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The movie title was better, and more poignant in remembering the movie itself...and itc contents
Converting CO2 to oxygen sounds like a good idea (Score:2)
How about we try it out here first? We have plenty of extra CO2 floating around that won't be missed, and I don't think anyone on Mars would complain if we do ours first.
i always thought nanotech was assbackwards (Score:2)
in that, you look at your average list of requirements that nanotech is supposed to fulfill, and pretty much some microbe or insect already does most of that
i think to satisfy the requirements here, you start with a preexisting microbe to do all the terraforming requirements. and if its something bizarre like surveillance you want, you work that into an insect somehow. now if you are thinking using insects for surveillance on mars is insane, i'm saying i agree with you. only that genetically engineering a p
Step 1. (Score:2)
~Sticky
/Step 2: Reprogram nano-bots to consume Earth...
each new martian rover is ten times heavier (Score:2)
Spirit and Opportunity the size of golf cart.
Curosity (Mars Science Lab) is the size of an SUV. This last one is is over two years late, a billion over budget, and tempting Congress to cut NASA's budget drastically.
What the fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
and protect the unique Martian biosphere,
So this guy has already discovered life on Mars, huh? After all, you don't get a BIOsphere without BIOS - life.
Another idiot talking out of his ass.
Now Just A Darn Minute Here (Score:2)
Is there enough pressure there? (Score:2)
Extracting oxygen's all well and good, but even if we do that, would there be enough atmosphere on Mars to make it livable?
-jcr
The Grey Goo fallacy. (Score:2)
If we get to the technology level we can build self-replicating nano machines that can survive and function outside very specific laboratory conditions / external energy input. The world would have already been long radically transformed by nanotechnology. Thus it makes the grey goo scenario unlikely (since we'd have the technology level to defend against this problem) and importantly, it means we would have long had the technology ability to go to mars more traditional ways easily and get a colony started.
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It's called Dissociative identity disorder. [wikipedia.org]
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It's unclear whether self-replicating "nanobots" are even possible to engineer, let alone possible to engineer in the next 50 years
Well, there is the existence proof of bacteria and other microbes. Whether we can make equivalent machines remains to be seen, but there's no physical law preventing it.
-jcr