Microrobotics: The Key to Extraterrestrial Life?

[ArmoredFairy698]

My younger sister and I were watching a show on the National Geographic channel this morning about extraterrestrial life. Here's what it had to say:

There have always been many suggestions as to if aliens really exist, and if they do, how they could travel to earth and survive our planet's atmosphere.

Some are now saying that perhaps microrobots are the key. These microrobots are so small that they have the ability to travel through space, (by whatever means -- even wormholes were presented as a possibility) and arrive at another planet with the ability to clone themselves and form colonies of millions of microbots.

So my question is, who built these microbots that came from somewhere else, and how can a machine clone itself that easily? Is this a technology that perhaps NASA is working with right now that could be a key to our colonialization of other planets?

[Capt.ArD]

If you read Michael Chrichton's PREY, he explains how such nanobots can "clone" themselves. Note, i am not using this example as fact, but it is a good theory.

In order to manufacture a robot that small, you would like to do it with tools that are also that small. start off making a tiny machine capable of producing more machines, only smaller. have those machines make more, smaller machines, which make smaller machines, which make your final product. now you have a whole bunch of nanobots, as well as a large number of nano-sized "machine tools" or "constuctor bots".

now, send the whole crew along on its excellent adventure. when it gets to its destination, the bots start their colonizing, while the constuctors start turning out more bots, and more constuctors. they can use the natural resouces of the planet for materials.

pure theory. alot of things that need to be worked out, and definitely not within our current capabilities. fun ideas though.

[ArmoredFairy698]

Actually, your theory makes alot of sense. It seems so much more believable now than it did in the 5 minute blurb about it on that National Geographic show.

Jeez...if we starting creating things like this, imagine the possibilities! We have already creating microscopic robots, smaller than the width of a human hair, but they do not yet have the ability to reproduce and construct replicas of themselves.

Check out this site for more on those tiny bots. (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2005/09/14.html)