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Fabbing, Matter compilers and Nanofacture

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Tue, 2010-01-12 13:52

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Fabbing, Matter compilers and Nanofacture

I just came across the Cornucopia project at MIT http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects.php?action=details&id=79 . They are looking at what is essentially a 3D printer for food. Various components are extruded on top of the dish, heated and cooled as necessary. This is of course just a variant of a 3D printer; we already have versions that do similar things with plastic, sugar, concrete or cells. The interesting issue is when this kind of oldfashioned or "low tech" fabbing is used in EP. I can see a number of cases: 1. Full nanofacturing is overkill for many things. There is no particular reason to do elaborate assembly of the interior of decorations, soup or a wall. Standard modules or bulk matter in no particular molecular state can do just as well. While nanotextured food can be delicious, a printed hamburger is often good enough if you want the retro taste. 2. Many objects are squishy, movable and won't sit still for manufacturing. This can be solved using nanoscaffolding, compartmentalization, zero gravity etc., but it adds a lot to the complexity of the design. If ultra-precision is not needed, lower resolution fabbing is the way to go. 3. No or few regulations on the fabber. You can get around some of the blueprint restrictions by building parts of a low-resolution fabber and then making your own stuff in it. It won't make ultratech or make nanoforgeries, but its products will be hard to trace and often good enough for particular uses. 4. Cheap. Maintaining the software and nanohardware for full nanofacture is nontrivial. A fabber is easy and rugged. Just the thing for the barsoomian hideout. In general, old technologies rarely disappear. They just become less visible, and may get a cultural patina. A shelf with decorations with the typical dithering of fabbing on their surfaces sends a stong retro/homemade signal. Oldtimers yearn for a *real* printburger like they used to get in Old Shanghai, not the nanofacsimiles on sale in New Shanghai. And in the outer system people play with enormous ice fabbers, "printing" enormous objects made out of ice.

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Sat, 2010-05-01 09:37

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Fabbing, Matter compilers and Nanofacture

Just saw this rapid prototyping machine for ice: http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~rmsl/Index/ice/index.html While mainly a novelty here on Earth, on Titan and elsewhere in the outer system this is pretty ideal for making outdoors equipment. Add a bit of reinforcing fibers and you have a strong composite material.

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Fri, 2010-05-28 15:38

Dry Observer Dry Observer's picture

Re: Fabbing, Matter compilers and Nanofacture

Arenamontanus wrote:
I just came across the Cornucopia project at MIT http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects.php?action=details&id=79 . They are looking at what is essentially a 3D printer for food. Various components are extruded on top of the dish, heated and cooled as necessary. This is of course just a variant of a 3D printer; we already have versions that do similar things with plastic, sugar, concrete or cells. The interesting issue is when this kind of oldfashioned or "low tech" fabbing is used in EP. I can see a number of cases: 1. Full nanofacturing is overkill for many things. There is no particular reason to do elaborate assembly of the interior of decorations, soup or a wall. Standard modules or bulk matter in no particular molecular state can do just as well. While nanotextured food can be delicious, a printed hamburger is often good enough if you want the retro taste. 2. Many objects are squishy, movable and won't sit still for manufacturing. This can be solved using nanoscaffolding, compartmentalization, zero gravity etc., but it adds a lot to the complexity of the design. If ultra-precision is not needed, lower resolution fabbing is the way to go. 3. No or few regulations on the fabber. You can get around some of the blueprint restrictions by building parts of a low-resolution fabber and then making your own stuff in it. It won't make ultratech or make nanoforgeries, but its products will be hard to trace and often good enough for particular uses. 4. Cheap. Maintaining the software and nanohardware for full nanofacture is nontrivial. A fabber is easy and rugged. Just the thing for the barsoomian hideout. In general, old technologies rarely disappear. They just become less visible, and may get a cultural patina. A shelf with decorations with the typical dithering of fabbing on their surfaces sends a stong retro/homemade signal. Oldtimers yearn for a *real* printburger like they used to get in Old Shanghai, not the nanofacsimiles on sale in New Shanghai. And in the outer system people play with enormous ice fabbers, "printing" enormous objects made out of ice.

Also, a normal fabber can probably produce replacement parts used in simpler technologies, or even entire machines. And someone with limited resources, anti-"high technology" or trying to keep a lower profile -- less nano, less networked computing, less tech to be suborned by the TITANs. It's a rare heliostat solar-concentrator mirror that gets turned against its owner. And it's a rare inert object (like a manually operated solar concentrator) whose non-existent electronics or wireless signals reveal its presence to anyone scanning every square meter of the Martian surface or every cubic kilometer of the Kuiper Belt. Even for TITAN nanoswarms, some things just aren't worth the effort. After the Fall, though, one doesn't have to be a bio-conservative to be acutely aware of the vulnerabilities of certain forms of ultratech. And after all, why make it easy? Or, you may simply lack nano-manufacturing capability and have to make do with basic equipment. I'm sure there are advanced machines in some habs and on Mars that have a lot of lower tech parts or design hacks added to them in order to supplant elements that break and whose replacements can not be purchased or rebuilt by the owner. As a side note, I suspect that an awful lot of the early space colonists and those who survived the Fall of Earth by more than pure luck were very familiar with fabber tech, even if they no longer used it. People having to get by in remote areas or operate outside of the conventional economy, and quite a few resourceful researchers, were undoubtedly used to making what they needed, instead of buying or requisitioning it. So they may be a bit like HAM radios in a modern-day disaster -- even if there's theoretically a better communication method available, the combination of reliability and familiarity makes it irresistible to many.

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