09-21-2014, 01:19 AM
One of the more interesting ideas Freitas has is that a self-repping robot swarm might not find all the elements it needs, but could use fusion to create some of the rarer elements - I don't think we've ever considered the earliest colony missions as having that kind of small-scale fusion capability, although they all have fusion or catalysed fusion drives. Even the beam-propelled craft would need a fusion drive to decelerate to orbital speed. Certainly later colony missions could use fusion/transmutation to fill the gaps in the resource table, but I don't think this technology would be available for the earliest interstellar colonists.