Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: landman@hanami.eng.sun.com (Howard A. Landman x61391) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Nanotech thoughts Message-ID: Date: 4 Dec 89 23:45:03 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 75 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article peb@tma1.eng.sun.com (Paul Baclaski) writes: >The question then becomes: what is the actual cost of building an >assembler lab? You need a programmable assembler, raw materials, >design support equipment and very specialized knowledge. This is >very similar to building a nuclear weapons lab. A programmable >assembler is going to be very expensive, even if it is cheap for >it to reproduce (this is because the opportunity cost of losing >the assembler to the competition is very high)--so security will >be extremely tight. However, no security is perfect and some >assemblers will be stolen. The people stealing an assembler will >still need raw materials, design support equipment (which does not >self reproduce) and specialized knowledge. Perhaps the cost is on >the order of $10,000,000 minimum, when all things are considered, but >the black market usually pays more for anything, so the cost would >be higher. This is probably less than the cost of building a >nuclear weapons lab, but is still higher than most individuals >can afford. The black market pays LESS for rubles and pirated software. Be careful what you assume. Anyway, I don't agree with this estimate at all. You need: 1. CAD tools to design what you want to make 2. A way to translate the plan into "nanospeak". 3. One assembler. 4. Raw materials for more assemblers and product. 5. An inspection device to monitor the process. OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO Let's assume our rogue works at a nanotech company, and has access to both 1 and 2. Then he can design his product "after hours", or while appearing to be working on other things. Taking the assembler and "data tape" are about equally difficult, which is to say not at all. Raw materials should be cheap by definition (this is after nanotech exists, after all). So the (somewhat optional) inspection device is probably hardest. Already you can buy a commercial scanning tunneling microscope capable of resolving atoms for about $40,000. I've heard that a high school student built one out of about $100 in parts. So it appears that a home nanotech lab could be set up for somewhere between $1,000 and $100,000. With a lot of work. PESSIMISTIC SCENARIO 1 requires a personal computer (circa 2000, a PC will be over 100 MIPS, 128 MB memory, 1 GB disk) or workstation (don't ask!) costing (in today's dollars) perhaps $5,000 to $200,000. The tools themselves (including translation capability 2) will cost between $500 and $500,000. The assembler is bought illegally for under $100,000 (after all, the source can always make more!). Raw materials are insignificant next to these. A commercial grade lab setup should cost no more than a few $100,000. So the total cost won't be more than $1,000,000. So I think the $10,000,000 number is 1 to 4 orders of magnitude too large, most likely around 2. That is, you'd have a shot at it for $100,000. The reason big factories are expensive is that they're optimized for maximum throughput and economies of scale. A factory designed to make a small quantity of one product once can be considerably cheaper. Also, it won't need to operate under as stringent safeguards. Of course, we don't need nanotech to have this kind of problem. There's a reaction starting with (a simple inexpensive organic compound) and catalyzed by (a certain metal) which produces (an extremely toxic and non-bio-degradable compound) in moderately good yield. It's been estimated that for $3000 or so you could make enough of this stuff to render a large metropolitan area uninhabitable for a few decades. So then you rent a small private plane, fly over the city of your choice, and dump this stuff out the door. Presto! You've just wasted a major city for under $10,000 (plus, probably, the lives of the pilot and the chemist). Smaller targets would be even cheaper. (I hope you understand why I'm being vague about the exact process!!!) Howard A. Landman landman%hanami@eng.sun.com Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com