Re: Methane threatens to bake humanity like Turkeys in an Oven

On 13 Feb, 23:16, "George Dishman" <geo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It is not. A CAD/CAM based VN not only replicates it also makes
anything that is compliant.

We use CAD/CAM at work to make a variety of metalwork
and have used it on occassion for rapid prototyping
where any arbitrary shape can be made using UV setting
to produce a mould, but it's uses are very limited and
the technique is extremely expensive. You seem to have
a very odd idea of what it can do.


If you are abale to assemble anything you can take a CAD/CAM drawing.
The essential step is being able to assemble.
To produce vast numbers of thin plates either to
assemble into a single rigid shield at L1 or for a
Dyson swarm, you need a factory churning out those
plates, not more machines. Those factories would
need to be lifted from Earth because you have a
chicken-and-egg situation, there are no factories
in space capable of making factories, and there's
no sense using replication because the equipment
needed to manufacture all the parts of the factory
would be quite different from what is needed to
churn out the shield plates.

You have a variety of elements in your swarm. The important thing is
that their is a route to each element in the swarm. Of course a lot of
the effort will go into replication but there will be something left
over. How pray do factories on Earth operate?

Yes, or better sent as panels for assembly in situ. You
can set up the factory near Earth and send individual
panels which are added to the structure at L1 over some
time. What that means though is that you first locate an
asteroid of several million tonnes and bring it into
Earth orbit, then process it into panels and send them
either into individual Earth orbits or for assemble at L1.

What I was talking about some posts back was the tidal
problem if you made the entire assembly elsewhere and
tried to bring it into L1.

You would not attempt to do this. you would have assembly robots at L1
taking prepared sheets.


I think we shold be clear about what we would be trying to achieve.

Yes. You are trying to create a sunshield, nothing more.
You have suggested VN as a means to that end only and
I have pointed out that we do not have a capability of
self-replication in any form whatsoever

A VN system takes in raw material and replicates. The replication is
complete. If we have smelters we produce more smelters.

No, a smelter takes in ore and produces pig metal. A VN
machine would take in pre-processed components and turn
them into a copy of itself which could also act as a
smelter. The downside is that it needs components to
assemble which you don't have and the vast majority of
the final item would be geared to the more complex task
of replication, not smelting. A smelter need only be
some refractory container, a large mirror, some means of
separating the products when in liquid phase (there's no
gravity so maybe it has to rotate like a centrifuge) and
methods for loading and unloading.

A smelter is one element. All elements are replicated.
As I said I
should have talked about VN swarms rather than VN machines. Each
entity in a swarm and a smelter is an entity is produced by other
entities. A swarm is a VN swarm if the inputs left after subtracting
outputs from other elements are basic inputs.

In fact industry on Earth is a kind of VN swarm. We have industry
where basic raw materials form products. We have all the machines
needed to produce the machines. If we have a flatpack assembler a
closed loop (potentially) exists on Earth.

Exactly. Now you have a choice:

a) create a copy of all of that in space and put all
the thousands of people needed to run it up there

Yes but machines will doo everything the people could. That is the
point. With a flatpack assembler you are all but there.
b) keep the industry down here and only lift the end
product, the shield panels

c) produce the simplest and lightest factory capable
of making shield panels and lift it flatpack into
space. Assemble it there and start processing the
asteroidal material into panels.

My money would be on (c) but it is still sci-fi nonsense,
there's no way we could bring a 2 million tonne asteroid
into Earth orbit for processing and the costs would be far
beyond anything we could afford.

No you just send a seed. You have a network of processes with the net
input being asteroid material, and with all the elements being outputs
of other elements. The NET inputs are raw materials. You don't need
millions of tons merely a seed. One or perhaps 2 of each process.

Compared to giving some small seed grants to farmers to
produce bio-fuel and requiring car manufacturers to
raise the proportion of bio-fuel that can be used
without invalidatiing the warranty (currently 5 or 10%),
any sort of sunshield idea is totally nuts.

That is not really relevant. It is purely the commercial practices of
the biotech industry.

Why do you need low temperature processes.

Look back two paragraphs, you suggested it.

A low temperature process is preferable but not vital.

I will accept that seed
sizes can be reduced for a pure low temperature route. But even if the
seed is 100 tons or so that is still within current lift capability.

Get it into your head that we do not have self-replication
and we will not have it at the level of processing millions
of tonnes of asteroidal material in space in a time scale
that can help with this problem. The methane will be released,
do whatever it will to the atmosphere, and dissipate naturally
before we have anything like that technology even in the lab.

If you have it at all, it will be at the level of processing millions
of tons. This is the whole point of relication. We don't have it now -
True. Can we have it? How long will it take to get it? My claim is
that the most difficult step is a flatpack assembler. If you have this
constructing a VN swarm is not really that complicated. You will need
a list of processes and (perhaps) a computer that can order processes
such that the inputs for every process INCLUDING THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE AGENT is accomplished from a net input of raw space materials
only. This is the rigorous statement.
True. Initially a few critical components would come from Earth. This
would be reduced as time went on.

No it wouldn't because what is sent up from Earth would
not be able to produce the huge silicon fab plants we
have here on Earth. Nor can you find the high quality
white silica sand they rely on in asteroids.

I am proposing that a few parts come from Earth. These would represent
a small proportion of total mass. Eventually chips too would be
fabricated in space.


- Ian Parker

.

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