Economics, advanced manufacturing techniques and space settlements

Ed Minchau wrote:

> Well, it depends on the scale you are talking about. If your 3d
> printer works at the nanoscale, then what you have is a
> nanoassembler; capable of building ANYTHING atom by atom given the
> raw material (ie dirt) and sufficient energy. Something like that
> would also be able to build other nanoassemblers.

I don't buy this. Basically programming the nanoassembler is
non trivial- it's a software problem. I do software for a living-
it aint easy.

> Poof! there goes the whole world economic system; no more famine, no
> more shortages of any physical items - anything with a design stored
> in memory somewhere on the internet could then be built, assuming
> adequate raw materials and energy.

I don't buy this economics problem. Architects? Software engineering?
Hardware design? Interior design. Hairdressers? Financial consultants?
etc. etc.

Approximately economics is related to manpower costs at
some level. Removing a class of costs doesn't remove
manpower costs.

> On the macroscale, this idea makes sense for implementing a Big
>
> Moving Job. Send a small probe to the target asteroid, containing
> communications equipment, small solar panels, 3d printer, and maybe
> an autonomous rover or two (BTW, I am working on an autonomous
> snakebot right now for just such a purpose). Once landed, the rovers
> acquire raw material for the 3d printer, and it produces things like
> large solar panels, large communication antennae, a mass driver, etc:
> all the heavy, simply-made stuff that can be built on-site. It would
> certainly reduce the overall cost of the mission.

Big time. Many things become easily possible.