Re: Europa energy fluxes

[Joe Latrell]

Thank you.This help a lot!  


I still see issues with what I will call volume of scale.  The smaller
you make your craft, the more area it has to cover the farther (scale
wise) is larger etc.  I see the advantages of having probes that are 1/3
current size and having three of them travel to Europa rather than just
one.  I guess I am still thinking miniaturization.

Next question then, how long does it take to 'build' nanobots and a
bacterium for that matter?

Joe L.

On Mon, 2003-03-03 at 19:04, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> 
> 
> On 3 Mar 2003, Joe Latrell wrote:
> 
> > Could someone please elaborate on what they mean by nanotech in these
> > discussions?
> 
> Nanotech as currently defined by the National Science Foundation
> and the National Nanotechnology Initiative is the ability to manufacture
> things on the 10-100 nm scale.  This is a bit different from the definitions
> that Feynman created 40 years ago [1] and Drexler expanded on 20 years ago [2].
> Feynman got it wrong (in that he projected at least one motor that was
> too large, put some money on the table challenging someone to create it
> and lost the bet).  Perhaps one of the few mistakes Feynman *ever* made.
> Drexler however got it right.
> 
> Nanotech as currently practiced involves two levels -- the microelectronics
> people pushing things down towards 100nm and lower and the chemists
> building up from the level of < 10 nm.
> 
> Where things get really interesting is in the middle.  A ribosome is
> about 30nm.  Drexler's diamondoid nanoassembler arm has dimensions of
> something like 30x100nm.  So those are the size scales you have to
> talk about if you want to "assemble" something (an enzyme, etc.).
> 
> The term "robust molecular nanotechnology" is generally used to include
> "nanorobots".  Nanorobots are bacteria sized machines (~1 micron (1000 nm)
> in size).  They are collections/assemblies of "nanocomponents" just like
> natural bacteria are.
> 
> 
> > If you just mean miniaturization, then fine, lets use it as such.
> 
> When I use terms like "nanotech", I generally mean things along the
> lines above.  Now, obviously the entire microelectronics trend
> and MEMS and microfluidics trends (much more recent but on similar paths)
> are driving what one could call general purpose miniaturization.
> 
> So while a Europa probe with an on-board "lab", if designed today,
> would have to depend on microelectronics/MEMS/microfluidics (multi-microns
> in size), one designed in a decade or more might be able to use developing
> "nanotechnology" capabilities.
> 
> It isn't clear to me exactly how small you could make a probe.
> But its a *lot* smaller than the probes we have been sending out
> to date.
> 
> > If the definition includes nanobots and the like, I really
> > think we need to start looking at a really LONG time before we can send
> > packages like that anywhere.
> 
> This is the problem -- people do not realize that "biotech" *is*
> "nanotech".  Want to engineer a bacteria to emit light that can be
> registered by a photodetector on the absorption of a specific
> molecule?  This is almost off-the-shelf technology *today*
> (depends to some extent on the molecule you want to detect).
> Want to engineer a bacteria that can tolerate a megarad+
> of radiation for long voyages through space?  We already
> have the complete genome sequence of Deinococcus radiodurans
> which can pull off this trick.
> 
> One needs to expand our thinking so that we understand
> "biobots" are not so different from nanorobots.
> 
> > Just to let you know where I am coming from, complete nanobots to me are
> > measured as under 1/10th of an inch in size (l x w x h).
> 
> No, this is *much* too large.  This would be a "microrobot"
> (or even collections of them).
> 
> Hope this helps somewhat.
> 
> Robert
> 
> 1. Feynman, R. P., "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" (1959)
>    http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
> 2. Drexler, K. E., "Molecular engineering: An approach to the
>    development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation",
>    PNAS (U.S.A.) 78:5275-5278 (1981).
>    http://www.imm.org/PNAS.html
> 
> 
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