Space trade is interplanetary or interstellar

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

. Plans and ideas on how trade functions have been published by

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

s and pundits since the 1960s, though science fiction writers have been envisioning such trade for several more decades.

Reality

Though the existence of interstellar trade is unknown, there are several theories developed by well known economists such as

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...

on how trade calculations and interest rates would have to be adjusted in such a circumstance. At very high velocities, for example a space station traveling at significant speeds relative to the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit ...

, there will be

time dilation In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them ( special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational ...

. In 2004 Espen Gaarder Haug published a technical research article in ''

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. The magazine ...

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

arbitrage In economics and finance, arbitrage (, ) is the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in two or more markets; striking a combination of matching deals to capitalise on the difference, the profit being the difference between the ...

. He published similar theories on what he called "SpaceTime Finance" in a book published in 2007 titled ''Derivatives Models on Models''. Paul Krugman, winner of the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

, published a research article on interstellar trade in 2010.

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 or settlement of Mars is the theoretical human migration and long-term human establishment of Mars. The prospect has garnered interest from public space agencies and private corporations and has been extensively explored in scien ...

is both important and can be made self-sufficient.

Robert Zubrin Robert Zubrin (; born April 9, 1952) is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He and his colleague at Martin Marietta, David Baker, were the driving force behind Mars Direct, a proposal in a 1990 res ...

, of

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

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 In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

s of Earth, Mars, and the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

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

asteroid mining Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids ...

trade than Earth. Jim Plaxco, in a paper putting forward the case for colonizing Mars, mentions that Phobos and Deimos 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 A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...

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 A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

s and

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

s. The asteroid belt is theorized to become a source of valuable ores that may develop into industrial asteroid mining infrastructure, whereas 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 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, is Vision Spaceport.Vision Spaceport, Carey M. McCleskey, Technical Manager, Spaceport Technology Development Office, NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center
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Reality

A motivator for colonization of Mars

Building commercial spaceports

See also

Commercial uses of space

Institutions

References

Further reading