{"id":24574,"date":"2016-04-12T09:47:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T16:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-galaxy"},"modified":"2017-06-04T10:31:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T17:31:07","slug":"how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-galaxy","title":{"rendered":"How Self-Replicating Spacecraft Could Take Over the Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-galaxy.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Forget about generation ships, suspended animation, or the sudden appearance of a worm hole. The most likely way for aliens to visit us \u2014 whatever their motive \u2014 is by sending robotic probes. Here\u2019s how swarms of self-replicating spacecraft could someday rule the galaxy.<\/p>\n<p><b>Top image by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/alejandroburdisio\" target=\"_blank\">Alejandro Burdisio<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/conceptships.blogspot.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Concept Ships<\/a>. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Back in late 1940\u2019s the Hungarian mathematician <a href=\"http:\/\/ei.cs.vt.edu\/~history\/VonNeumann.html\" target=\"_blank\">John Von Neumann<\/a> wondered if it might be possible to design <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joomla-gnu.com\/tuxebooks\/VonNeumann.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a non-biological system that could replicate itself in a cellular automata environment<\/a>, what he called a universal constructor. Von Neumann wasn\u2019t thinking about space exploration at the time, but other thinkers like Freeman Dyson, Eric Drexler, Ralph Merkle, and Robert Freitas later took his idea <a href=\"http:\/\/www.molecularassembler.com\/KSRM.htm\" target=\"_blank\">and applied it to exactly that<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-gal-1463732482\">http:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could...1463732482<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forget about generation ships, suspended animation, or the sudden appearance of a worm hole. The most likely way for aliens to visit us \u2014 whatever their motive \u2014 is by sending robotic probes. Here\u2019s how swarms of self-replicating spacecraft could someday rule the galaxy. Top image by Alejandro Burdisio via Concept Ships. Back in late [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1527,6,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alien-life","category-robotics-ai","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62064,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24574\/revisions\/62064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}