Etching Life into Space Rock

[Stoneheart]

So i took a long bath today and came up with a way to Terraform Distant Planets without visiting them.

We design a Nano machine and use a high powered Laser (or later other particle beams) to edge them directly into the surface of a object with little atmosphere and the needed chemical components.

The Idea is to build an evolving robosphere on a planet to build up an atmosphere and to build a huge Laser to catch a solar sail.

 

[Londo]

The main issue with this would be that you can't really edge things in space that don't have their own means to combat the lack of resistant forces. You also defeated your own idea with the conclusion... using light particle beams and lasers to push something would accelerate them incredibly quickly and with no means of actually stopping they'd be turned to atoms upon impact due to the speed and lack of resistance.

Starshot is already working on this.

It's already being planned for the glorious Alpha Centauri.

 

[Stoneheart]

The main issue with this would be that you can't really edge things in space that don't have their own means to combat the lack of resistant forces

you mean like planets and large objects? we etch all kind of stuff into "rock" and the idea for first Gen Nanomachines is to Etch them like chips.
I just want to do it over large distances

You also defeated your own idea with the conclusion... using light particle beams and lasers to push something would accelerate them incredibly quickly and with no means of actually stopping they'd be turned to atoms upon impact due to the speed and lack of resistance.

Thats why you have the robits build the laser, to STOP the solar sail.
You push a solar sail from earth with a laser and catch it on the destination with another Laser

 

[biglurker]

It would literally be easier to engineer organisms that can survive the vacuum and photosynthesize. Maybe big ass robots that can terriform the planet ahead of a colonizing ship.

 

[Stoneheart]

It would literally be easier to engineer organisms that can survive the vacuum and photosynthesize. Maybe big ass robots that can terriform the planet ahead of a colonizing ship.

you would need more rockets to get them there and it would take ages etc.

laser etching would be multi use and much faster

 

[Meriasek]

You can't just aim a laser at a distant planet and etch something into its surface due to the diffraction limit. Can barely do that from orbit, really.
Especially not nanomachines. Ever seen the optics on lithography machines? They use EUV light and have HUGE NA values, meaning that the optics are very large and have very short focal lengths. If you aim a laser at another planet you can be lucky a few stray photons reach it. Even satellite laser ranging only yields relatively few return photons, and those fuckers are even closer than the Moon.