What Would Starships Ship As Cargo Across the galaxy?

[Biskit]

You can't get around the Laws of Thermodynamics; that's why they are called laws unlike the theories of general or special relativity.

I suspect that is really just a historical thing and that the modern style is to refer to our physics models as theories rather than laws. Newton's 'theories' of motion are generally referred to as Laws of Motion, and as with most (all?) of the physical 'laws' of that era, we have subsequently learned that those 'laws' were just a fair approximation for their day and have subsequently been refined.

Trying to get around the limitations on speed of travel arising from relativity theory is no different from trying to get around the restrictions of modern thermodynamics.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Personally I would expect biological or biologically made products to be the most valuable.

How many worlds could grow trees that produced hardwood for making ornate desks with real wood? Compare this to (for example) mineral deposits which are most likely in abundance in asteroid fields or on non life sustaining worlds.

I would expect smaller non self sufficient colonies to spring up in places with rare and valuable mineral desposits but I still see the most trade being from human items or artefacts.

It is also worth remembering that given a larger trading base - such as world bases, then it can be expected that corporations and their owners become even richer than today. Mega-Conglomerates spanning dozens of systems.

Price of a space shuttle just to deliver them some Home Made French onion soup - who cares! they have planetary wealth at their disposal.

The economics soon go mad.

Peter F Hamilton has some of this in his Reality Dysfunction series - the trees from LaLonde are a special sort of wood that only grows there, licenses to cut it are almost impossible to get and there are restrictions on its trade. Such a highly prized commodity is therefore worth more than its weight in fuel.

Which brings me to my next point, it needs to be more valuable than the fuel and all associated transport costs, but as we are dealing with an unknown propulsion type then who knows!

Just my musings for thought.

 

[Ursa major]

I expect that there will be a whole... er... melange of valuable (not to say vital) biological items that can neither be synthesized nor produced away from their original world.

​

 

[Vertigo]

Hmm, I'm sceptical of that. I don't believe there are any Terran biological items - flora or fauna - that could not be grown elsewhere if the correct environment was provided. Again the question is, would providing that environment be more expensive than transporting the product? As for protectionist policies, they would always be got around eventually; sooner or later someone would transport a seed off the original planet and smuggle it elsewhere if the resulting product was worth it.

 

[Ursa major]

To be fair, the mode of interstellar transport used in the SF series where melange (not a bulk commodity) was important didn't involve travelling long distances, simply leaving one point in the universe and reappearing at another.

By the way, don't try worming the identity of the series out of me....

 

[Vertigo]

I suspect that is really just a historical thing and that the modern style is to refer to our physics models as theories rather than laws. Newton's 'theories' of motion are generally referred to as Laws of Motion, and as with most (all?) of the physical 'laws' of that era, we have subsequently learned that those 'laws' were just a fair approximation for their day and have subsequently been refined.

Trying to get around the limitations on speed of travel arising from relativity theory is no different from trying to get around the restrictions of modern thermodynamics.

Actually there is a difference; in science a law is a statement about an observed fact, a theory is an explanation for an observed fact. But we're splitting hairs, I believe that any attempt to say there will be a future method of interstellar travel that can transport mass across tens, hundreds or thousands of light years, whether by physically travelling or disappearing and reappearing, without proportional cost in materials, fuel, energy etc. is talking science fantasy not science fiction. One can possibly imagine future physics that might produce FTL but I can't imagine any physics that produces perpetual motion and transporting over such large distances for free is all but perpetual motion.

 

[Dave]

...sooner or later someone would transport a seed off the original planet and smuggle it elsewhere if the resulting product was worth it.

I'm sure you are already aware of this, but there are historical examples of this exact scenario in the trade between Europe and China/Japan.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm sure you are already aware of this, but there are historical examples of this exact scenario in the trade between Europe and China/Japan.

Indeed and exactly why I would expect it to happen. A good example would be the silk worm which did escape eventually despite all attempts to prevent it.

 

[ErikB]

Well I have tried to keep this a secret for a long time, but alas this thread has cracked me and brought it out. The answer is raspberry jam.

That's right folks. Everyone knows that aliens all universally love raspberry jam. From Klingons to Fremen to Martians and every conceivable species in between.

It is the stuff galactic empires are made of. From Darth Vader to the First Order and all things in between... it's the jam they want.

Now you know... LOL.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Hmm, I'm sceptical of that. I don't believe there are any Terran biological items - flora or fauna - that could not be grown elsewhere if the correct environment was provided. Again the question is, would providing that environment be more expensive than transporting the product? As for protectionist policies, they would always be got around eventually; sooner or later someone would transport a seed off the original planet and smuggle it elsewhere if the resulting product was worth it.

Not often I find myself disagreeing with you!

I think the key words here are "the correct environment". Even grapes grown in different vineyards on Earth taste sufficiently different (to use wine as an example).

So for arguments sake lets say we have an almost exact replica of Earth in terms of environment, weather conditions, distance from host star, gravity, tides and a moon of the same proportion. Then we would probably need to transport a huge amount of biological life to the new environment because:

Grape A can only be grown with the presence of insect B which in turn needs to eat insect X which feeds on plant z ad infinitum.

The difficulty in recreating a biosphere (even recreating a different biosphere on Earth) is monstrous - I would argue that it would be almost impossible and would require terraforming of the highest order.

That's the problem here - you need the seed, and the existing biosphere if you want the plant to grow as it does on its host planet. I mean you may end up with a better tasting wine, but cheap red tastes better than champagne to me but we all know which costs the most!

 

[Biskit]

Actually there is a difference; in science a law is a statement about an observed fact, a theory is an explanation for an observed fact.

OK - point taken, but scientific laws are not immutable, and observed facts change with more sophisticated observation techniques or environmental circumstances that were not previously achievable.

 

[Vertigo]

Not often I find myself disagreeing with you!

I think the key words here are "the correct environment". Even grapes grown in different vineyards on Earth taste sufficiently different (to use wine as an example).

So for arguments sake lets say we have an almost exact replica of Earth in terms of environment, weather conditions, distance from host star, gravity, tides and a moon of the same proportion. Then we would probably need to transport a huge amount of biological life to the new environment because:

Grape A can only be grown with the presence of insect B which in turn needs to eat insect X which feeds on plant z ad infinitum.

The difficulty in recreating a biosphere (even recreating a different biosphere on Earth) is monstrous - I would argue that it would be almost impossible and would require terraforming of the highest order.

That's the problem here - you need the seed, and the existing biosphere if you want the plant to grow as it does on its host planet. I mean you may end up with a better tasting wine, but cheap red tastes better than champagne to me but we all know which costs the most!

Oh no that's fine and I agree with you. What I think would happen would be, to take the grape example, grapes would be exported to planet X and the vast majority of the people would drink locally made cheap (and probably horrible) wine, whilst the wealthier would import, at great expense, wine from the vineyards of France back on Old Earth. Hence my belief that the only trade in physical goods, as opposed to information, would be for luxury goods and handmade stuff like art.

OK - point taken, but scientific laws are not immutable, and observed facts change with more sophisticated observation techniques or environmental circumstances that were not previously achievable.

Yes this is true but I still think that one law unlikely to mutate is that you don't get something for nothing. I still cannot imagine any future discovered technology is suddenly going to find a back door to space that lets you transport mass for no cost. If such a thing were possible then you could create perpetual motion by transporting mass some distance from a star and then letting it fall back under gravity, collect it's kinetic energy when it gets close and use that to 'transport' it back out again. I just can't imagine any kind of physics that would enable such a thing because, as I say, that would be perpetual motion.

 

[The Ace]

Just about anything, food, luxury goods, clothing, precious stones and metals, weapons, pharmaceuticals, machinery......

If it exists, somebody will want it, and be willing to pay for it, and that's only legitimate trade, the possibilities for smuggling are endless.