Using automata is a bit silly and has problems. The biggest problems are vacuum welding and lack of lubrication. Vacuum welding can cause higher wear or even failure on metal components. Gears and cams absolutely need lubrication, which is liable to evaporation in a vacuum or requires exotic elements such as molybdenum.
Gears and cams also need to be machined, and machining processes do not work well in a vacuum for some of the same reasons mentioned above. That being said, one ton of microchips goes a long way. Why bother with automata, when simple vacuum tubes(in space, a vacuum tube is a couple funny shaped pieces of metal in close proximity) and magnetic amplifiers could be used to amplify signals from microcontrollers into something capable of doing useful work?
Just spitballing: in a use case like TFA, building pieces and structures in/around an asteroid, would they not be subject to fouling by dust and debris from the processes going on around them?
Can they build a demo on earth? Maybe reshape a small hill-side into something fun or pretty with "Autonomous Restructuring". That would be fun to watch.
> Can they build a demo on earth? Maybe reshape a small hill-side into something fun or pretty with "Autonomous Restructuring". That would be fun to watch.
If you are restructuring an asteroid, containment isn’t much of a problem; if you want to do it to an isolated site on earth, it is more of a concern.
It's not "exotic" in that it isn't used (it has major industrial Uses) but rather that it is one of the less common materials in the crust. It's less common than many of the "rare earth" elements and less common than uranium (Uranium is the 49th most common element while Molybdenum is the 58th depending on source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... ).
Because of the large scale and also because that would be an extra step. This methodology works best if the problem of construction in space has some solution.
Gears and cams also need to be machined, and machining processes do not work well in a vacuum for some of the same reasons mentioned above. That being said, one ton of microchips goes a long way. Why bother with automata, when simple vacuum tubes(in space, a vacuum tube is a couple funny shaped pieces of metal in close proximity) and magnetic amplifiers could be used to amplify signals from microcontrollers into something capable of doing useful work?