Speculative Trade

> Bart:
>> Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't shipping grain in hard vacuum be almost
>
>... 					 Pumping in nitrogen looks like a
>good solution - it's cheap, is reasonably inert, and most beasties
>can't breathe it.  Of course, the crew can't either, making
>inspections of the cargo hold rather difficult since most ship designs
>have only an iris valve or hatch into the cargo bay.

I'd go for vacuum, on the grounds that if the ship gets attacked, the cargo
hold will be depressurised like the rest of the ship. Unless the crew want to
risk explosive decompression, that is.

Just as a matter of interest, how is grain shipped today? I haven't seen any
articles in the news about grain ships or grain-carrying trucks exploding, so
someone must have solved this problem already.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]