My work at MIT had focused on what we could build in space once we had inexpensive space transportation and industrial facilities in orbit. And this led to various sorts of work in space development.

in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System. '" Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond but in December 2003 Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate.

His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and publiK. Eric Drexlerd as the book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992) which received the Association of American PubliK. Eric Drexlerrs award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.