Pathway controversy

On the bottom of the Nanofactory Collaboration page they explicitly state that they try to tread the direct pathway.

Citation:

 Toward Advanced Nanosystems, 28 December 2008: There appears to be some confusion as to 
        who is advocating the direct-to-DMS approach to molecular manufacturing. We are.
        Our assessment is that diamondoid mechanosynthesis (DMS), including 
 highly-parallelized atomically-precise diamondoid fabrication, is 
 the quickest currently feasible route to a mature molecular nanotechnology, including nanofactories.
        We do not think that DMS is a “necessary first step” for molecular manufacturing, and 
 we wish the best of luck to those pursuing other paths. However, we do think 
 DMS is a highly desirable first step, since it offers a much faster route to mature nanosystems than competing approaches. 
 We disagree with the statement that “diamond synthesis seems almost irrelevant to progress toward advanced nanosystems.” 
 We have a favorable view of the feasibility of the direct-to-DMS approach – a favorable view supported by 
 hundreds of pages of detailed analysis in recently-published peer-reviewed technical journal papers and by 
 gradually-evolving mainstream opinion.

They did this in response to this article: E.Drexlers Blog: why diamond synthesis is a bad objective. Where E. Drexler roughly states the following:

• Promotion of the direct pathway to advanced APM systems is falsely attributed to him.
• Actually he always heavily advocated development starting from bio-molecular nanosystems.
• There’s a huge difference between a practical, near-term objective and an attractive but distant aim point.
• Some ideas about diamond synthesis (e.g. that it's a a necessary first step) are impractical research objectives that have received far too much attention and seem absurd to most scientists. At the current stage of research, diamond synthesis is both difficult and unnecessary. It's a particularly difficult test-case for the application of advanced mechanosynthesis to high-performance materials.
• Those ideas spread unproportionlally. Despite the original meaning of the term "mechanosynthesis" which he says is "molecular synthesis directed by mechanical means" it became very much equated to diamond synthesis.
• Mis-conceptional ideas like this have and may continue to impede progress.

Related

• APM R&D History