Space trade - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Space trade is interplanetary or interstellar trade

Trade

Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...

. Futurists and pundits have been publishing plans and predictions about such trade since the 1960s. Science fiction writers have been envisioning such trade for much longer.

Reality

Even if naturally no interstellar trade is known, there are surprisingly advanced theories developed by well known economists on how trade calculations and interest rates have to be adjusted in such hypothetical cases. At very high velocities, for example a space station traveling at significant speeds relative to the speed of light, there will be time dilation. This according to Einstein's special relativity theory first published in 1905. Einstein's theory about time dilation is tested out and his time dilation predictions are proven right. Espen Gaarder Haug published in 2004 a technical research article in Wilmott Magazine

Wilmott Magazine

Wilmott Magazine is a mathematical finance and risk management magazine, combining technical articles with humor pieces. Each copy of Wilmott is 11 inches square, runs about 100 pages, and is printed on glossy paper...

on how interest rates and securities calculations had to be adjusted for very high velocities to avoid arbitrage

Arbitrage

In economics and finance, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets: striking a combination of matching deals that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices...

. He published similar theories on what he called "SpaceTime Finance" in a book published in 2007 titled "Derivatives Models on Models". Nobel Memorial Prize winner (in economics) Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman

Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...

published a research article on interstellar trade in 2010.

Dr. John Hickman published in 2008 an article on the potential cultural and political problems related to interstellar trade.

A motivator for colonization of Mars

Several people have considered trade within the solar system as one of the ways in which colonization of Mars

Colonization of Mars

The colonization of Mars by humans is the focus of speculation and serious study because the surface conditions and availability of water on Mars make it arguably the most hospitable planet in the solar system other than Earth...

is both important and can be made self-sufficient. Zubrin, of Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

Astronautics, in a paper on the economic viability of colonizing Mars, puts forward interplanetary trade as one way in which a hypothetical Martian colony could become rich, pointing out that the energy relationships between the orbit

Planetary orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...

s of Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...

place Mars in a far better position for involvement in any future asteroid mining

Asteroid mining

Asteroid mining refers to the possibility of exploiting raw materials from asteroids and planetoids in space, including near-Earth objects. Minerals and volatiles could be mined from an asteroid or spent comet to provide space construction material , to extract water and oxygen to sustain the lives...

trade than Earth.

Jim Plaxco, in a paper putting forward the case for colonizing Mars, mentions that Phobos

Phobos (moon)

Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...

and Deimos

Deimos (moon)

Deimos is the smaller and outer of Mars's two moons . It is named after Deimos, a figure representing dread in Greek Mythology. Its systematic designation is '.-Discovery:Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall, Sr...

can be developed, in the long term, from being short-term testbeds for the techniques of asteroid mining and staging posts for colonization of Mars itself, into key trading post

Trading post

A trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....

s in interplanetary trade, again because of their favourable position within the solar system.

It is theorized that if different locations within the Solar System become inhabited by humans, they would need to transport valuable resources between different planet

Planet

A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...

s, moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

s and asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s. The asteroid belt is theorized to become a source of valuable ores which may develop into industrial asteroid mining

Asteroid mining

infrastructure, while Earth may export hi-tech production. The factor of energy-efficiency of interplanetary transportation may become very important to estimate economic value of a trade route.

John Hickman identified the principal obstacle to developing space trade as the distances involved, which will reduce all or nearly all trade to the exchange of intangible goods. That threatens the possibility of conducting business in a genuinely common currency and of enforcing debt agreements incurred by governments.

Building commercial spaceports

Building high-capacity commercial spaceports may require connection with other modes of transportation, such as railroad or sea, which would make spaceports another dimension of national economy. One analysis of commercial, technical, and logistical concerns for an operating spaceport, formulated by the Spaceport Technology Development Office of NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, is Vision Spaceport

Reality

A motivator for colonization of Mars

Building commercial spaceports

Further reading

Commercial uses of space