In the near term, the chief benefits would likely be in basic research. Mature nanosystems might make possible affordable and robust closed environment lifesupport systems that could take advantage of insitu resources, such as asteroidal metals and cometary organics. In this case, the risk consists of zero return on investment. The bottomup approach promises to virtually eliminate these defects, enabling the fabrication of stronger materials that could improve reliability and reduce spacecraft dry weight, resulting in increased payload capacity and higher orbital altitude, ultimately reducing the to orbit .

Tiny computers, sensors and actuators, trivially cheap on perunit basis, allow things like smart walls to automatically repair micrometeorite damage, comfortable and unobtrusive space suits, and terraforming tools. These incremental improvements would offer the possibility of small improvements in capability across the broad spectrum of space activities, ensuring mission completion, prolonging spacecraft life, and fostering the safety of human crews. In the medium term, the nanosystem devices would be directly involved in the manufacturing process. These systems should be able to selfreplicate, or make copies of themselves.

The theoretical strengthtodensity ratio of matter is about times that currently achieved by aerospace aluminum alloys, partially because current manufacturing capability allows macromolecular defects that weaken the material. Therefore it seems prudent to continue Space activities and utilize nanotechnologies as they come on line. Such capability would potentially enable many people to affordably live in space. With such extensive monitoring and increasingly efficient control of propulsion systems, life support, and other spacecraft systems, mission success rates would increase at lowered If the The of trailing behind in this technology would be very high.

It is especially important to have diversified portfolio of approaches so that unforeseen dead ends can be circumvented without delay. The important arises from the general ability to build large structures to complex, atomic specifications by direct positional selection of reaction sites Fourth, the settlement of Space is long term enterprise, these longterm benefits of molecular nanotechnology are the relevant. Such capabilities should make possible inexpensive access to space.

Mature nanosystems might make possible affordable and robust closed environment lifesupport systems that could take advantage of insitu resources, such as asteroidal metals and cometary organics. The bottomup approach promises to virtually eliminate these defects, enabling the fabrication of stronger materials that could improve reliability and reduce spacecraft dry weight, resulting in increased payload capacity and higher orbital altitude, ultimately reducing the to orbit .These projected advances would expand the complexityreliability tradeoff envelope for orbital and lunar systems. Such capabilities should make possible inexpensive access to space. In the near term, the chief benefits would likely be in basic research.

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