Slashdot Mirror
NASA Supporting Nanotech Development
It doesn't come easy writes "In laboratories around the country, NASA is supporting the burgeoning science of nanotechnology. The basic idea is to learn to deal with matter at the atomic scale -- to be able to control individual atoms and molecules well enough to design molecule-size machines, advanced electronics and "smart" materials."
Sorry, but have you actually worked as a researcher somewhere?
Science is pretty much open source, in most fields. The Nanotech people might be a little more secretive because the commercial application is so close, and of course the commercial research and development groups don't publish a lot of papers, but in general I wonder how you've come to think that.
I don't know of anyone who was been working on something for 10 years secretly. I don't know anyone who would have a name in the field, attend conferences and get research grants without publishing one's work.
And pretty much every researcher already works by building on the works of others. Science has used the open source principle ages before any software engineer was even feeding a machine with punchcards.
Ahh, Classic ignorance.
Oh so many times I've heard this arguement. I'm a researcher in Surface Science and I look at atoms and molecules all the time. Chemical synthesis is very amazing, I give you that. Being able to attatch specific functional groups to complex molecules is no small task. However, the controlled manipulation of these molecules and atoms in physical space is not something that classical Chemistry can do. It's tools developed by engineers and physicists that are now allowing the next generation of nano-technology. STM and AFM are examples of two very powerful (but each with its own weaknesses) tools. The state of the art can be described as cave men tools trying to build a sky scraper. It's not going to happen. But we continue to use these tools and develop them until we have tools good enough to do what we need. Now, back to chemistry. There are now several groups in chemistry who use the tools developed by physicists to study chemical properties. An example is controled chemical reactions on surface step edges, very interesting stuff. Now I ask you, what is the difference between this reaction and the reaction done in a beaker 100 years ago?
The key difference is that we have nano-scale control of the atoms/molecules. I would hardly call mixing two beakers of solution together (OK, a bit simplified, but you get my message) nano-scale control.
Well, for one thing, we can now observe intemediate states and control reactions like never before. We can induce reactions at will and hopefully, (the big one) Manipulate (with control) reactions in a way we could never do before. Imagine building DNA without enzymes to cut and paste like a Frankenstein. COMPLETE control of the nano and sub-nano scale is far from here. But we are making progress like mad. 25 years ago, nobody would have thought this possible, but it's now happening. It's a bit scarey to think of the materials we can make, but it's exciting to think of the possibilities. Sure Chemistry has been good to us, and yes we need it, but there is no possible way that Chemistry alone, as practiced for so long can accomplish what modern Physical Chemistry (or Chemical Physics) can do.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
NASA's support for nanotech R and D is not surprising, given their concepts for the future of space exploration. A cornerstone of this new initiative depends completely on nanotechnology [or more properly molecular engineering] namely ANTS, the Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm. NASA's ANTS site has very nice overviews and movies of the concepts and potential missions, in particular PAM, the Prospecting Asteroid Mission.
Briefly, PAM envisions spacecraft in the shape of a cube with a 10 cm edge, each with a mass of 1 kg. Constructed mainly of carbon nanotubes in autonomous space-based factories, a thousand are assembled into a cube with a 1 m edge and launched from the Lagrange points on a 2 1/2 year journey to the asteroid belt. Each 1 m cube separates into its component sub-cubes, each of which deploys a solar sail. The 1,000-strong swarm separates into subswarms, each of which seeks out and surveys a single asteroid. All data collected during the survey is entrusted to a single cube, which then returns to earth for recovery, while the remaining members of the subswarm move on to another target and repeat the process. Fascinating QuickTime movies are available on the site.
Just to comment on one point, it's pretty much established - Drexler pointed it out in his seminal nanotech work, "Engines of Creation" - that it will NOT be possible to produce "infinitely strong structures infinitely small."
It will be possible to produce materials that are stronger than at present, but there is a physical limit. (IANAP - I Am Not A Physicist - or ME - Materials Engineer)
Drexler's first work covers the possibilities of nanotech very well, although do note that he warns that he describes some applications in contexts that might in fact be made obsolete by nanotech.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!