MakerBot Replicator + 3d Printer

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For example, Greenwalt said Replicator should be taken outside of the acquisition and budget bureaucracy and rules to help it succeed. Furthermore, it needs agile acquisition and budgeting practices and should utilize other transaction authorities. Freitas, Robert; Merkle, Ralph (2004). "Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines - General Taxonomy of Replicators" . Retrieved 2013-06-29.

Exceptions to this pattern may be possible, although none have yet been achieved. For example, scientists have come close to constructing RNA that can be copied in an "environment" that is a solution of RNA monomers and transcriptase. In this case, the body is the genome, and the specialized copy mechanisms are external. The requirement for an outside copy mechanism has not yet been overcome, and such systems are more accurately characterized as "assisted replication" than "self-replication". Nonetheless, in March 2021, researchers reported evidence suggesting that a preliminary form of transfer RNA could have been a replicator molecule itself in the very early development of life, or abiogenesis. [3] [4] The first technical design study of a self-replicating interstellar probe was published in a 1980 paper by Robert Freitas.A 2016 article in The New Yorker noted that replicators may be a "metaphor for the distant endpoint of the Industrial Revolution". [14] They point out that technology as presented in Star Trek: The Next Generation changes the moral equation of being human, because nearly anything you want can be created with a request. [14] Starfleet replicator technology was theoretically capable of creating artificial substitutes for natural organs for use in certain transplants, such as eyes or lungs. ( TNG: " Loud As A Whisper"; VOY: " Phage") A genetronic replicator could extrapolate actual organs for use in medical transplants from a DNA sample, though this device was experimental. ( TNG: " Ethics")

Nanotechnology or more precisely, molecular nanotechnology is concerned with making nano scale assemblers. Without self-replication, capital and assembly costs of molecular machines become impossibly large. Many bottom-up approaches to nanotechnology take advantage of biochemical or chemical self-assembly.On some Starfleet vessels, the full range of meals programmed into replicators was limited to senior officers (at least Lieutenants and upwards) through the use of an access card, or certain areas only frequented by senior officers would have a replicator that could freely dispense higher quality recipes to anyone. Some types of meals were simply limited by volume, such as producing only one slice of pizza at a time. Limited recipes included gnocchi, fritters, lobster ravioli, macaroni and cheese with a breaded top, pasta with pesto, and lobster mac and cheese. ( LD: " Moist Vessel", " I, Excretus") In 1998, Chris Phoenix suggested a general idea for a macroscale replicator on the sci.nanotech newsgroup, operating in a pool of ultraviolet-cured liquid plastic, selectively solidifying the plastic to form solid parts. Computation could be done by fluidic logic. Power for the process could be supplied by a pressurized source of the liquid. In 2004, Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle published the first comprehensive review of the field of self-replication (from which much of the material in this article is derived, with permission of the authors), in their book Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, which includes 3000+ literature references. [3] This book included a new molecular assembler design, [61] a primer on the mathematics of replication, [62] and the first comprehensive analysis of the entire replicator design space. [63]

Given the currently keen interest in biotechnology and the high levels of funding in that field, attempts to exploit the replicative ability of existing cells are timely, and may easily lead to significant insights and advances. A self-replicating machine is an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. Although suggested earlier than in the late 1940's by Von Neumann, no self-replicating machine has been seen until today. [ citation needed] Certain idiosyncratic terms are occasionally found in the literature. For example, the term clanking replicator was once used by Drexler [7] to distinguish macroscale replicating systems from the microscopic nanorobots or " assemblers" that nanotechnology may make possible, but the term is informal and is rarely used by others in popular or technical discussions. Replicators have also been called "von Neumann machines" after John von Neumann, who first rigorously studied the idea. However, the term "von Neumann machine" is less specific and also refers to a completely unrelated computer architecture that von Neumann proposed and so its use is discouraged where accuracy is important. [3] Von Neumann himself used the term universal constructor to describe such self-replicating machines.Hollow, Matthew. "Confronting a New 'Era of Duplication'? 3D Printing, Replicating Technology and the Search for Authenticity in George O. Smith's Venus Equilateral Series". Durham University . Retrieved July 21, 2013. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help)