I'm referring to the very outset of such a project, because in the beginning
even though you would most likely have sufficient resources on the moon you
couldn't have self replicating machines without mining and heavy industry in
place. If you didn't establish an industrial and manufacturing base, they
wouldn't be able to self replicate and would have to transported from earth
either pre-assembled or in flatpack form, but flatpack items weigh as much
as assembled items.

Of couse a flatpack weighs as much as the assembled items. My point is
that a flatpack solves the AI issues, not weight od seed issues. The
assembly shows an ubnderstansing of CAD/CAM and Engineering Phsics. It
opens up a wide range of processes.

I sometimes feel that we are used to large scale processes, we are used
to blast furnaces weighing 100 tonnes or so. In fact extraction need
not be that weight intensive. We would probably extract from the Moon
using electrochemical processes where unit size would be a lot smaller.

High temperatures, if required, would be attained using mirors. The
size of a blast furnace is fixed by its need to retain heat.

Well I don't think Communism works. But I don't think it's Communism or
Capitalism that's the problem. I think negative aspects of human nature
which cause the problems.

If you are saying that lack of imagination is what is holding us back I
will agree with you. Marxism as I have shown does enshrine "lack of
imagination" into a dogma.

The question of the extent to which belief in fact disctates the route
society takes is an interesting one. If you believe someting wrong you
have the choice either.

1) Believe at different levels or
2) Go under.

Lenin I think knew deep down that Marxism was fundamentally flawed, it
is a fact that no Soviet leader after Stalin believed in it. Being a
politician he never had the courage to admit he was wrong and he
condemned the whole Soviet Union to stagnation.

I am in fact British so this does nor really concern me. America is
going to have to come to terms with the fact that Intelligent Design is
wrong. The way in which it affects society may be complex. I mentioned
it in connection with VN machines for this reason. If life arose in a
warm little pond. I think that the WLP was a chemical system not a
fully developed cell. Chemicals from the WLP formed themselves into a
self replicating system which eventually produced life as we know it
today. If a WLP could arise spontaneusly it follows that a self
replicating sytem is not that complicated. I believe a VN machine is
within reach of current technology.

Now suppose these statements are read and believed in India and China -
to a greater or lesser extent in Europe, but NOT in the States (5% of
graduates in science/Engineering as against over 50% in Asia) what do
you think the consequences are likely to be.

The answer to Tee shirts and Trainers is more robotics, it is the ONLY
answer. In fact with robotics and local production you have a lead time
in the marketing of fashion. Suppose however Tee shirt land gets a lead
in robotics. The US will then be finished. Britain together with the
rest of Europe would then have to face the new realities.