Project Daedalus - Variants

Variants

A quantitative engineering analysis of a self-replicating variation on Project Daedalus was published in 1980 by Robert Freitas. The non-replicating design was modified to include all subsystems necessary for self-replication, using the probe to deliver a "seed" factory with a mass of about 443 metric tons to a distant site, having the seed factory replicate many copies of itself there to increase its total manufacturing capacity, and then using the resulting automated industrial complex to construct more probes with a single seed factory on board each over a 1,000 year period. Each REPRO would mass over 10 million tons, mostly fuel needed to decelerate from 12% of lightspeed.