On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 10:43:16AM -0700, Kelly St. Clair wrote:
> On 6/14/2017 10:31 AM, Kelly St. Clair wrote:
> > Keep in mind, also, that our expectations and assumptions are the
> > product of air travel being (relatively) cheap and easy since before we
> > were born.  Remember, Age of Sail.  Your travel times across a world can
> > be in hours, but trips between systems are going to be measured in
> > weeks, no matter HOW high your jump number is; those who travel will be
> > used to that.
>
> ... and as an addendum to that, if we actually /had/ a (manned) space
> program that went anywhere past low orbit, and at least semi-permanent
> settlements on /any/ other body in this system, we'd probably have a better
> context for what travel times are "supposed" to look like. But... we don't,
> and so our perspective has a sharp falloff between "a few hours and hundreds
> of dollars" and "never, for any amount of money." :p
>

For all of these reasons I think that the Concorde vs 747 analogy is
perfect in this context. Given that it takes at least a week to get
anywhere across interstellar distances, I expect that the pace of
interstellar business will be measured in months or weeks, not weeks
or days and certainly not hours.

Also, I would expect some companies would gain a business advantage by
building small J-3 or J-4 transport ships to move staff from home base
to hot spot and back as today's companies use private jets and
helicopters. I'm reminded of an episode of Chasing Classic Cars where
a business man took the host to Colorado for a day trip to inspect a
Ferrari Daytona. Via private aviation, that trip probably cost in the
$10k ~ 50k range but the car in question was worth several hundred
thousand dollars if not millions and it had special meaning to the
person paying for the trip.

--
Chris

      __o          "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
    _`\<,_           -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)____.___o____..___..o...________ooO..._____________________
Christopher Sean Hilton                    [chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]