This question is inspired by Could medieval people produce automatic firearms if they had access to the schematics?

I have simply moved it forwards in time as follows:

In 2019 we receive an alien broadcast that tells us in detail how to make an FTL drive (or some other technology that we would have taken centuries to discover on our own).

Question

Is 2019 technology (not science) sufficiently advanced that given sufficient raw materials, we could make any conceivable human-scale artefact that the aliens specified? I say human-scale to exclude Dyson spheres or anything greater in size than say a pyramid.

Specifically: We already have electron microscopes, particle accelerators, incredibly accurate machine tools, nuclear power,etc. Surely we could make anything that the aliens described even if we didn't understand how it worked. Or can we imagine something that we can't possibly make, given modern technology and manufacturing knowledge?

To put it in different words. What manufacturing capabilities do we know that we don't have?

Notes

Assume that we can completely decipher the aliens' schematics and instructions even if we don't understand the science that explains how the thing works.

The aliens have told us what the artefact does and which levers to pull etc.

Assume we have the raw materials necessary and a huge budget has been allocated.

I have no real alien technology schematics at hand.

The closest thing I can think of is the schematics of something it is not manufactured in the factory of my employer. Let's say it is the latest smartphone of a top notch brand.

On those schematics I would see which parts I need and how to assemble them. Good so far.

However, if I don't have access to the parts, I won't be able to assemble anything. I might have the raw silicon used to manufacture the microchips, but I will have no clue on what to etch in that chip.

Even worse, the schematics do not include the software controlling how the parts interact together, unless the assembly is a purely mechanical one. The software is often the razor splitting an excellent product from an average one.*

In the case of an alien technology, it might mean the difference between a working copy and something resembling a cargo cult.

'* to detail on this, in the sector where I work many excellent manufacturers are protected by dishonest competitors simply copycatting their original products by the lack of knowledge on how the software has to work.

Surely we could make anything that the aliens described even if we didn't understand how it worked. Or can we imagine something that we can't possibly make, given modern technology and manufacturing knowledge?

Yes, we can. Some things that come to mind:

• it requires some really exotic material (say, heavy transuranics). The aliens also have methods to manufacture those, but we don't. So, we need to first build the machines that will build the machines that will build the machines...


• it requires much tighter tolerances - say, one-nanometer etching capability. We still don't have that. Aliens have machines that do this, but they also require the same capability, much as modern chip factories require chips to work.

In both cases, we wouldn't need or be able to use the alien's XXVth century technology: we would need their 22nd century technology to be able to build their 23rd century machines that will enable us to build 24th century technology that will finally be able to use and build alien-current technology.

You say we now have "everything" - from electron microscopes to X-ray beams. We do have those, but how do we know they're "everything"? Maybe the aliens discovered micro-gravitics and are now based on that.

The belief that we had "everything" has already been declared two or three times in human history, and every time it turned out we were wrong.

Extinction

That is the only thing that can truly and ultimately stop our progress. Until we exist, we can advance. We did so for as long as we have existed, and there is no reason why we should stop. Eventually, we will reach whatever technology exists anywhere else in this Universe.

Now, provided that the chance of Earth being hit by a random zig-zagging rock of adequate size is non-zero over the time-scale of the Universe, or that the Universe may collapse draggin us with it, or that we may trigger our own destruction (as we sometimes try to), the answer to the other question "Ok, but will we always be able to...?" is

No.