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On a tangent here, but "not just 3d printing a plastic part" got me thinking.

Scientists, instead of requesting time on Hubble, ask time for the 3DBuilderAndExperimenter, give it a blueprint and inputs/outputs, it runs, returns any results, and is recycled.

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The first scientist should ask the genie for more wishes, er, I mean, for the 3DbuilderAndExperimenter to build another 3DBuilderAndExperimenter

Certainly, professor Von Neumann: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

We are such machines, so we know they’re possible to make, even though we don’t yet know how to make one on Earth let alone in space.

But we only need to make one of them!

The “and is recycled” part puts a crimp in that plan. :-)

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