Today, Dyson's Astrochicken resonates with several theories of how space exploration might proceed in the future. Computer scientist Rodney Brooks has proposed sending a multitude of cheap, bug-like robots to explore Mars instead of solitary, expensive rovers. Cheaper and smaller means of studying space have also been the primary design philosophy of NASA for many years, perhaps best exemplified by the Mars Pathfinder mission. Physicist and noted author Michio Kaku wrote in his work Hyperspace, "Small, lightweight, and intelligent, Astrochicken is a versatile space probe that has a clear advantage over the bulky, exorbitantly expensive space missions of the past, which have been a bottleneck to space exploration. ... It will not need huge quantities of rocket fuel; it will be bred and programmed to 'eat' ice and hydrocarbons found in the rings surrounding the outer planets".
In recent years, Dyson has referred to Astrochicken as a "joke", though it is not quite certain what he means by this. He went on to say "I think it's a sensible idea, but one shouldn't take it literally. We don’t have the science yet; we don't have the technology. It would be a disaster if NASA tried to do this in the bureaucratic NASA style."
As a noted author of essays on the possibilities of science in the future, Dyson's theories, such as the Dyson sphere and the Dyson tree, have become popular in the scientific and science fiction communities. The more whimsically named "Astrochicken" has not achieved this same level of fame.
A Dyson tree is a hypothetical genetically-engineered plant, (perhaps resembling a tree) capable of growing in a comet, suggested by the physicist Freeman Dyson. He suggested that such plants could produce a breathable atmosphere within hollow spaces in the comet (or even within the plants themselves) utilising solar energy and cometary materials, thus providing self-sustaining habitats for humanity in the outer solar system.
A Dyson tree might consist of a few main trunk structures growing out from a comet nucleus, flowering into branches and leaves that intertwine, forming a spherical structure possibly dozens of kilometers across.
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