The idea of self-replicating spacecraft has been applied - in theory - to several distinct "tasks".

The Terraformers were self-replicating spacecraft, governed by a simple artificial intelligence.

Like exploration, the extermination of other civilizations might be carried out with self-replicating spacecraft.

In 1980, Robert Freitas suggested a more ambitious plan: a self-replicating spacecraft intended to search for and make contact with extraterrestrial life.

Self-replicating spacecraft, a fictional self-replicating space craft in the science fiction novels by Alastair Reynolds.

A von Neumann probe is a self-replicating spacecraft designed to investigate its target system and transmit information about it back to its system of origin.

The self-replicating spacecraft are named Gaijin (Japanese for "foreigner"), after their discovery by a Japanese observer on the Moon.

With technology such as self-replicating spacecraft, these niches would include neighbouring star systems and even, on longer time scales which are still small compared to the age of the universe, other galaxies.

In theory, a self-replicating spacecraft could be sent to a neighbouring star-system, where it would seek out raw materials (extracted from asteroids, moons, gas giants, etc.) to create replicas of itself.

So a plausible post-scarcity scenario must imply zero population growth or relatively low population growth, even though possible future technologies such as self-replicating spacecraft could theoretically maintain exponential growth far beyond Earth's carrying capacity.

The first quantitative engineering analysis of a self-replicating spacecraft was published in 1980 by Robert Freitas, in which the non-replicating Project Daedalus design was modified to include all subsystems necessary for self-replication.

In Fred Saberhagen's 1967 Berserker stories, the Berserkers of the title are giant computerized self-replicating spacecraft, once used as a doomsday device in an interstellar war aeons ago, and, having destroyed both their enemies and their makers, still attempting to fulfil their mission of destroying all life in the universe.