[Space/Spaceships] Getting the velocity/Delta V I want with the tech I want

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There are essentially no minerals that are hard enough to find that a several hundred AU journey is a sensible option, and very very few consumer goods where trading blueprints for local manufacture doesn't make more sense. Foodstuff over a 4 year journey will usually do poorly, unless it's something that normally gets aged, and even then only the stuff that's $5,000/bottle is worth sending. The only materials I can really see being worth transporting are genetic materials.

Yep. "Foodstuff" will be transported, if at all, in the form of seedstock. If you cannot produce food (and other necessities) on a planet, you probably won't see any settlers on a planet. Personnel, possibly, but not settlers.

As has been pointed out in various places, if the first settlers on Mars chose to build their houses out of gold bricks, shipping would still be the largest expense.

[scc]

The reason I think that foodstuff's would be transported is that there might well be bans on import grain seed

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by scc

The reason I think that foodstuff's would be transported is that there might well be bans on import grain seed

Still won't be transported. It's just not valuable enough. Remember, even with extremely optimistic assumptions about drive technology, it's still going to cost more than gold.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

We may have had the ability to assemble things atom by atom before we launched Apollo. We certainly have it now well before we could launch a starship.

Um, no. We don't have that ability, except possibly in purely unrealistic theory. As a practical matter we not only don't have it, we're nowhere close to having it. We don't even have a detailed or complete knowledge of how the atoms of a steak go toether and in what patterns, a six-ounce sirloin is a vastly complex and imperfectly mapped structure. We know what elements go into the steak, yes. We know many, but not close to all, of the molecules those atoms form, and we know some of the ways those molecules go together, but at no level above maybe the elemental one is the knowledge complete enough to synthesize a steak, even if we had the practical ability to assemble it atom by atom.

We're a long way from being able to make a steak from raw elements, and we're a long way from star flight. Will we have the knowledge and the practical ability to synthesize the steak atom-by-atom it by the time we have star flight? The question is unanswerable by its nature, except by time.

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Suspended animation has never been proven to work. That would push the TL to 9 or 10. If that's allowed, then all sorts of THS type engines become possible.

OK, hibernation chamber, then. Age at 1/10th of the normal rate.
How about a mass driver for propulsion?

[scc]

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

OK, hibernation chamber, then. Age at 1/10th of the normal rate.
How about a mass driver for propulsion?

Mass Drivers provide something like 20 times the acceleration of Ion Drives but a 10th of the Delta Vee, not workable. Given the distances that is is occurring across, even if I keep the reduced ones, Delta Vee is more important then acceleration.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There are essentially no minerals that are hard enough to find that a several hundred AU journey is a sensible option, and very very few consumer goods where trading blueprints for local manufacture doesn't make more sense. Foodstuff over a 4 year journey will usually do poorly, unless it's something that normally gets aged, and even then only the stuff that's $5,000/bottle is worth sending. The only materials I can really see being worth transporting are genetic materials.

The above is true, the one exception might be a mineral that has some specific use, but only forms under conditions the locals don't know how to economically duplicate at home.

One other possibility would be finished products, components or things that have to be manufactured using facilities the other planet simply hasn't duplicated yet. If the manufacture of frembotzers requires a dedicated continent-spanning industrial network, hundred-mile long particle accelerators, and other grand-scale gear, it'll be a while before all that gets duplicated elsewhere.

Bulk food stuffs, though, is just hard to imagine ever making sense.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by scc

The reason I think that foodstuff's would be transported is that there might well be bans on import grain seed

There are historical precedents for this sort of thing, mercantilist bans on local manufacturing, for ex, to force purchase of home-built products. But I can't think of any instance where it was done with staple food.

In a situation like that, it's hard to imagine the colony surviving (or the home world, if it's dependent on the colony). If anything disrupts the flow of ships, the receiving world would be well and truly screwed, and they'd know it. They'd have a huge incentive not to settle at all, and if they did a huge incentive to get their hands on some seeds by means fair or foul. To make it worse/better, all it would take is one motivated individual to smuggle one bag of seed, and the import ban in broken after the passage of some time, because one bag of seed can become huge fields of grain over several generations of the plant.

Also, bulk foodstuffs for a significant population are just that, bulky. The volume might end being worse than the mass, but both would likely be prohibitive unless you've get an enormous fleet or some very huge ships and very cheap ships. It takes a lot of food to feed a big population.

One thing that might work: addictive drugs. If there's some drug that the locals really really like, but for whatever reason can't make/get at home, and doesn't cost that much to ship, you might could charge huge amounts for it. Real world historical examples: tobacco, coffee, tea.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

OK, hibernation chamber, then. Age at 1/10th of the normal rate.
How about a mass driver for propulsion?

Real mass drivers are far worse than even the mediocre ones from THS. If you have a large comet or asteroid to move, where mass and acceleration is of no consequence, it makes some sense.

Hibernation chambers are just as pie in the sky dreams as cryogenics. The slowed aging aspect is simply super science as hibernating animals don't age any slower.

[scc]

I wasn't thinking of staple crops, but rather cash ones. In particular the sorts of ones where people buy it SOLELY because it's expensive