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"We'd have most of what we predicted of the conquest of space, if we hadn't ignored parasite control."
- Larry Niven
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| Device Replication | ||
| Manufacturing devices from a template to save space on space craft. |
This is an early description of this idea, which is now gaining currency.
| They had come equipped for solving the problem of the maze. The ship’s brain, of course, was a first-class computer, and it carried the details of all previous Earth-based attempts to enter the city. Except one, and unfortunately that had been the only successful one. But records of past failures have their uses. The ship’s data banks had plenty of mobile extensions: airborne and groundborne drone probes, spy-eyes, sensor batteries, and more. Before any human life was risked on the maze Boardman and Hosteen would try the whole mechanical array. Mechanicals were expendable, anyway; the ship carried a set of templates, and it would be no trouble to replicate all devices destroyed. But a point would come at which the drone probes had to give way to men: the aim was to gather as much information as possible for those men to use. |
| Technovelgy from The Man in the Maze,
by Robert Silverberg. Published by Avon Books in 1969 Additional resources -
|
The current idea is to use 3D printing devices in space, on the International Space Station for example, and use CAD files (templates) to just make the devices they need, rather than stockpile them from Earth shipments.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Man in the Maze
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Silverberg
Tech news articles related to The Man in the Maze
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Silverberg
| Robot Bricklayer Or Passer-By Bricklayer? |
| Organic Non-Planar 3D Printing |
| Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories |
| Varda Space Industries Orbital Factories |
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
