The Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems explores how current laboratory techniques for atomically precise fabrication can be extended to develop progressively more powerful fabrication technologies; it focuses on current capabilities and next-stage applications, then outlines paths toward high-throughput molecular manufacturing.
The Russian Academy of Sciences has now made a translation of the Technology Roadmap [pdf] available. [17 June 09 update: The original .ru link no longer works.]
The Technology Roadmap project was led by the Battelle Memorial Institute, which manages research at a group of U.S. National Laboratories that includes Pacific Northwest, Oak Ridge, and Brookhaven. These labs hosted several Roadmap workshops and provided many of the participating scientists and engineers. I headed the technical leadership team for the project.
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Vasilii Artyukhov 05.13.09 at 1:49 pm UTC
There’s this interesting tendency that, while Russia is generally behind the U.S. and Europe when it comes to science and technology, such ‘radical’ ideas like molecular manufacturing or, e.g., cryonics seem to be much better accepted (still poorly, but much better) by general public here than in most other countries. I’m not sure about the exact cultural causes for it, but this tendency is seen quite clearly.
Scott Jensen 05.13.09 at 4:22 pm UTC
When clicking on the hyperlink “translation of the Technology Roadmapn [pdf]“, it linked to a Russian version and not an English translation.
Eric Drexler 05.13.09 at 5:50 pm UTC
Scott — Yes, because the Russian version is the translation. This one is outbound. BTW, the are also translations of Engines of Creation into Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese.
Eric Drexler 05.13.09 at 7:06 pm UTC
@ Vasilii Artyukhov — During meetings and talks in India, China, and Brazil I found a similar openness to bold ideas, perhaps because their people have experienced enormous change in their own lifetimes.
BTW, while having lunch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, I was surprised to learn that my hosts had not heard of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who of course pioneered realistic thinking about spaceflight (the rocket equation, etc.) and authored The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices, published in 1903.
Chris Phoenix 05.21.09 at 8:33 am UTC
Well, of course they haven’t heard of Tsiolkovsky. He hasn’t published anything lately. Publish or perish, dude…
Chris