>>11400481it was only a conference paper. One of the first things you need to show for a big system like a Lackner-Wendt auxon is show that it's not wildly implausible and has some merit. Which is what Lackner and Wendt did. Dyson and others had proposed self replicating machines before, but that was really just an offhand statement. They didn't show that such things were possible. Lackner and Wendt show that there really are all the elements we need available in the dirt and that sufficient solar power is available to process said dirt into stuff.
