Starships (see article) are a fantastical subject. Yet when engineers design them, they try to be as rigorous as possible. After all, the laws of physics apply to a starship just as much as they apply to bridges or motorbikes.
It is not just scientists who enjoy technically rigorous speculation, though. Economists have investigated interstellar travel as well. One of the best-known papers was written by Paul Krugman, a trade theorist, in 1978, in between his duties as an “oppressed assistant professor”. “The Theory of Interstellar Trade” describes itself as “a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics”.
Dr Krugman, a science-fiction fan, ponders how trade might work between two widely separated planets, Earth and Trantor. Such trade will be affected by relativity theory, which shows that beings on Earth (or Trantor) will see time pass at a different speed from those who are on board cargo ships moving between the two. This could make it hard to calculate the net present value of a shipment. And the fact that messages can move at best at the speed of light (and cargoes more slowly still) might do odd things to the ability to arbitrage between the economies of the two worlds.
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