Re: FTL COMMUNICATIONS

Roger Burton West wrote:
> But ships already have communications systems, and computer storage is
> very light compared with most of the other things they might be
> carrying. Sure, the marginal cost of carrying a message won't be zero,
> but it'll be pretty close. What they charge is another matter.
Look at it the other way. You make the message carriage equipment part
of a transponder that is legally required to carry cargo - essentially
an IFF system. You don't have one, you don't get to dock in our
spaceport mate. By the time we're talking about FTL travel, computer
storage space is likely to be of massive capacity and highly dense. If
you could carry an entire supply of messages on something the size of an
ice cube, Build that into the IFF transponder unit and people will
forget it's even there. 
 
There's always the argument that all the carriage is in zero-G space,
therefore the messages are essentially weightless and should incur no
cost :).

			TTFN
				Jonathan White

-- 
"A Man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams"