wrote in message
oups.com...

Ed Huntress wrote:

(snip greetings)

Yeah, I have tried some web boards. Usenet's my thing. I am back.

Erk. I had too much espresso Yesterday.

First, make sure you have an "off" switch on those things, or we could
wind
up paving the whole country with little Chinese mill/turn machines. g

g Paving the country with them? Or paving their country with us?
Brrrr....

No actually, since no "factory worker robot" exists, duplicating human
abilities,
there is no "grey goo" problem with MTSR. The whole thing is
rate-limited by our puny
ability to transfer expertise to each other, since the only truly
universal constructor in
the proposal is us.

snip

So I am now asking for any comments on internal combustion,
self-powered, self-reproducing universal machine tools.

It sounds like one hell of a show. But why would you want this advanced
technology to run on old fossil-fuel power?

Because MTSR is actually centuries old technology. I'm a revivalist.
It's been, like, nearly ten generations since the Industrial
Revolution. Much has been lost. Self-upgrade was how machine tools were
*born*.

To repeat, machine tools usually use electric motors as prime movers
because we have the infrastructure. There's no infrastructure on Mars
and beyond. Nowhere to plug in.

So, do we build an engine for a lathe, one for a mill, etc. or a line
shaft? No. We build a single universal machine that can make parts for
its own engine. Or maybe a series of engine, rotary, and slide modules.
It seems the most efficient thing to do. And we hold the keys to the
pump, not that a machine tool could take them from us....

Doug


It's an interesting concept. But before you do machine tools, try doing
Jessica Simpson. You'll have a much bigger market.

--
Ed Huntress