i'm reading some sf where there's this whole solar system economy and part of it involves shipping food between planets and moons. i just want to confirm - this is not remotely plausible right? fuel costs should be way too high?
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not that fuel is ever discussed at all, this is soft space opera stuff we're talking about, but it's still jarring whenever it comes up and the food isn't a luxury item
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the market accounts for this by making the food more expensive than the fuel. in every space economy simulation (video games, shows, etc) food is always shown as expensive because it would be.
the corollary being that it is profitable to ship food between planets
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Depends entirely on the assumptions of the technology involved. Sufficiently advanced rocketry, or some alternate means of propulsion, could make interplanetary shipping cheap enough. Alternately, lack/failure of farming or terraforming could make food cost enough to be worth it.
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Historically Greek city states were founded in fertile areas and got the vast majority of their fools from the surrounding lands. As transport tech got better, cities could get larger and larger - pulling food from further and further out.
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Maybe solar sails? I don't know how the amount of light needed for propulsion compares with that needed for photosynthesis though...
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we ship fish from scotland to asia to be cut then to america to be eaten. i think it's safe to say any fuel we now use will be orders of magnitude more expensive than solar system age fuel
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but you have to escape a gravity well once on the way there and once on the way back! doesn't seem remotely comparable to travel across the surface of one planet
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fuel costs will always be paroquial to whatever technology there exists at the time, it's safe to assume that in a sci fi civilization which spans across planets and moons the problem of the cost/scarcity of fuel has been long solved through technology
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The problem might be political r/t tech. The Erie Canal was a very $$$$$, very shallow ditch, but it decreased transport costs by 95% and effectively removed the weight limit. It enabled the Industrial Revolution in the Midwest & turned New York into a global economic center.
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