MakerBot Replicator + 3d Printer

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In Star Trek a replicator is a machine that can create (and recycle) things. Replicators were originally seen to simply synthesize meals on demand, but in later series much larger non-food items appear. The technical aspects of replicated versus "real" things is sometimes a plot element. Although previous sci-fi writers had speculated about the development of "replicating" or "duplicating" technology, [1] the term "replicator" was not itself used until Star Trek: The Next Generation. In simple terms, it was described as a 24th century advancement from the 23rd century "food synthesizer" seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. In Star Trek: The Original Series, food was created in various colored cubes. In the animated series (1974), various types of realistic-looking food could be requested, as in the episode entitled "The Practical Joker." The mechanics of these devices were never clearly explained on that show. The subsequent prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise, set in the 22nd century, featured a "protein resequencer" that could only replicate certain foods, so an actual chef served on board who used a hydroponic greenhouse where fruits and vegetables were grown. Additionally, that ship had a "bio-matter resequencer" which was used to recycle waste product into usable material. [2] Several witnesses expressed concern about competition for budget resources and that Replicator could take funding away from other important projects.

a b c Rocha, Luis M. (1998), "Selected Self-Organization and the Semiotics of Evolutionary Systems", Evolutionary Systems, Springer, Dordrecht, pp.341–358, doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-1510-2_25, ISBN 978-90-481-5103-5 Historians of machine tools, even before the numerical control era, sometimes figuratively said that machine tools were a unique class of machines because they have the ability to "reproduce themselves" [8] by copying all of their parts. Implicit in these discussions is that a human would direct the cutting processes (later planning and programming the machines), and would then assemble the parts. The same is true for RepRaps, which are another class of machines sometimes mentioned in reference to such non-autonomous "self-replication". In contrast, machines that are truly autonomously self-replicating (like biological machines) are the main subject discussed here.Self-replication process holds promise for production of new materials". Science Daily. 2011-10-17 . Retrieved 2011-10-17.

In 2015, advances in graphene and silicene suggested that it could form the basis for a neural network with densities comparable to the human brain if integrated with silicon carbide based nanoscale CPUs containing memristors. Kemeny, John G. (April 1955). "Man Viewed as a Machine". Scientific American. 192 (4): 58–67. Bibcode: 1955SciAm.192d..58K. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0455-58. Power would be provided by a "canopy" of solar cells supported on pillars. The other machinery would be placed under the canopy. Freitas Interstellar Probe Replicator (1979-1980)". Molecularassembler.com. 2005-08-01 . Retrieved 2009-09-16.A NASA study recently placed the complexity of a clanking replicator at approximately that of Intel's Pentium 4 CPU. [12] That is, the technology is achievable with a relatively small engineering group in a reasonable commercial time-scale at a reasonable cost. Harris, Zellig (1968). Mathematical Structures of Language. New York, NY: John Wiley and Son. p.17. The Enterprise-D's replicators were used to provide blankets to a Bajoran refugee camp. ( TNG: " Ensign Ro") A more trivial approach is to write a program that will make a copy of any stream of data that it is directed to, and then direct it at itself. In this case the program is treated as both executable code, and as data to be manipulated. This approach is common in most self-replicating systems, including biological life, and is simpler as it does not require the program to contain a complete description of itself. One of the first replicators seen by Humans was the one seen by the crew of Enterprise when they had their ship repaired in a mysterious automated repair station. Prior to this, T'Pol once saw a similar device on a Tarkalean vessel that was capable of replicating almost any inanimate object. Until this time, the most comparable technology aboard 22nd century starships were protein resequencers, which had limited capabilities compared to later technologies. ( ENT: " Dead Stop", " Fight or Flight", " Oasis")

Replicator needs to integrate with the defense industrial base and to ramp up drone production. It should leverage commercial technologies, according to Greenwalt. Echoing this point, Clark said that the DoD needs to show its interest and investment in drones as a signal to the industrial base to increase production. However, the simplest possible case is that only a genome exists. Without some specification of the self-reproducing steps, a genome-only system is probably better characterized as something like a crystal.Wang, Tong; Sha, Ruojie; Dreyfus, Rémi; Leunissen, Mirjam E.; Maass, Corinna; Pine, David J.; Chaikin, Paul M.; Seeman, Nadrian C. (2011). "Self-replication of information-bearing nanoscale patterns". Nature. 478 (7368): 225–228. Bibcode: 2011Natur.478..225W. doi: 10.1038/nature10500. PMC 3192504. PMID 21993758. In geometry a self-replicating tiling is a tiling pattern in which several congruent tiles may be joined together to form a larger tile that is similar to the original. This is an aspect of the field of study known as tessellation. The " sphinx" hexiamond is the only known self-replicating pentagon. [9] For example, four such concave pentagons can be joined together to make one with twice the dimensions. [10] Solomon W. Golomb coined the term rep-tiles for self-replicating tilings. In 2004, General Dynamics completed a study for NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts. It concluded that complexity of the development was equal to that of a Pentium 4, and promoted a design based on cellular automata.

Biochemistry: simple systems of in vitro ribosomal self replication have been attempted, [15] but as of January 2021, indefinite in vitro ribosomal self replication has not been achieved in the lab.

It is a long-term goal of some engineering sciences to achieve a clanking replicator, a material device that can self-replicate. The usual reason is to achieve a low cost per item while retaining the utility of a manufactured good. Many authorities say that in the limit, the cost of self-replicating items should approach the cost-per-weight of wood or other biological substances, because self-replication avoids the costs of labor, capital and distribution in conventional manufactured goods. It’s how they orchestrate, how they organize themselves, how they use the tactics that the unmanned systems enable, how they employ those tactics in the field, how they basically sequence their operations,” Clark said. “So, it’s a lot of the kind of operational art that they’re bringing to bear that’s actually yielding success, rather than just throwing a bunch of mass at the wall and hoping that the Russians get overwhelmed. I think the lesson there is we got to figure out ways to enable our unmanned systems to be employed in a very flexible way that tactical operators can then adjust in the field.” Replicator technology, even if produced on a larger scale, had not been able to be used to create complex objects such as shuttlecraft or starships (the production staff felt that being able to replicate entire starships "at the push of a button" would severely impact dramatic potential). However, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "For the Cause", industrial replicators are used to replicate large components of ships, shuttlecraft, and other pieces of this sort, which are later used in shipyards to construct such vessels. In this manner, as few as 15 industrial replicators are enough to replicate the components needed to build a fleet of starships or to help a civilization recover from a planet-wide natural disaster. When Beverly Crusher determined that a captured Romulan needed ribosomes to survive, she noted that the replicator could not be used due to the complexity of the molecular structure. ( TNG: " The Enemy")