# How should near c velocities affect pay rate. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411 "2009-07-09T04:30:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/1 "2009-07-09T04:30:16Z")
So I was watching the rather…interesting…_Dark Star_ when one of the characters made a comment about aging only three years despite being out in space for twenty (due to the time dilation from their near light speed velocity). This got me to wondering, how should these brave souls be paid? By the time they actually experience? Or by the time that goes by back on earth? On the one hand, they are only doing three years worth of work, not matter how long they are gone. On the other hand, the folks back at mission control are getting as much service as possible over twenty years and these guys are giving up a chance to experience those twenty years back home. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/2 "2009-07-09T05:52:28Z")
I suspect that both would factor into it. Prices are based on the average of various people’s evaluation. So presuming there’s a free market, you wouldn’t worry about making up a pay scale based on some sort of logic, you would just do the same thing as is done now and pay the minimum wage necessary to get the desired number of possible recruits. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/3 "2009-07-09T06:21:25Z")
Congratulations, this is the most Dopendous GD question ever! Often when people go overseas they get their straight pay (3 years worth here) plus a hardship allowance for living in an inhospitable location. My friend in the Air Force gets one for Fairbanks, though they actually love it up there. That would seem the way to do it here, though the foreign clime is the future relative to the age of the traveler. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/4 "2009-07-09T06:25:02Z")
Why wouldn’t you just pay them a flat fee? Sort of like how you pay an airline a flat fare, not necessarily based on flight time or mileage. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/5 "2009-07-09T08:53:31Z")
If you’re going to send me out somewhere and I return to find that all my friends, family, loved ones, and the world has 20 years worth of change whereas I only experience 3, well, you better compensate pretty damn well. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![ashman165](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ashman165](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ashman165)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/6 "2009-07-09T09:04:24Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > So I was watching the rather…interesting…_Dark Star_ when one of the characters made a comment about aging only three years despite being out in space for twenty (due to the time dilation from their near light speed velocity). > > This got me to wondering, how should these brave souls be paid? By the time they actually experience? Or by the time that goes by back on earth? On the one hand, they are only doing three years worth of work, not matter how long they are gone. On the other hand, the folks back at mission control are getting as much service as possible over twenty years and these guys are giving up a chance to experience those twenty years back home. I would definitely make it a point to pay him in his own frame of reference. I’d had him a trusty certified company clock to take with him and then check it when he got back to see how long he’d been working while he was out there. For all I know, he mostly took a break during those 20 years since the clock only records him having worked for 3 of them. Lazy bum wouldn’t get a good reference either: “In 20 years of employment, Frank took a 17 year long break.” =P ---
**Author:** ![Baboonanza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f475e1/32.png) [@Baboonanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baboonanza)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/7 "2009-07-09T09:17:59Z")
Flat fee, payable on safe return of ship. 20 years of inflation will roughly halve how much you have to pay them! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/8 "2009-07-09T12:11:03Z")
Well, typically they would be paid by their employer and have the checks direct deposited into their bank accounts. These entities would all be in the stationary frame of reference on Earth. From an accounting perspective, the spaceship, its cargo and crew would need to be on the space shipping company’s books for 20 years while they are in transit. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/9 "2009-07-09T14:52:53Z")
And let’s not forget the tax issue: 3 years taxes or 20? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/10 "2009-07-09T15:40:11Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Well, typically they would be paid by their employer and have the checks direct deposited into their bank accounts. These entities would all be in the stationary frame of reference on Earth. From an accounting perspective, the spaceship, its cargo and crew would need to be on the space shipping company’s books for 20 years while they are in transit. Yes, but the accountants are going to want to see 20 years worth of signed timesheets. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/11 "2009-07-09T15:46:13Z")
In _The Forever War_, wasn’t pay (and combat bonuses and so on) all paid according to the Earth reference frame while enlistment time was figured by the soldier’s frame? ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/12 "2009-07-09T16:05:02Z")
You think that’s bad, Paul Krugman published a [paper](http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf) on interstellar trade, trying to figure out how to calculate interest rates on loans when time dilation applies. Too bad Krugman (probably) won’t be alive in 2500 when this baby becomes Nobel worthy. > [@](#): > > ``` > This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/13 "2009-07-09T16:27:26Z")
Yet another reason Krugman is a rock star among economists in my estimation (valueless as that estimation is, with me not knowing much about economics. 😉 ) One interesting aspect of this awesome question is that the pay received by the employee can be completely disproportionate to the cost to the employer, thanks to the wonders of compound interest (wasn’t that how they managed to pay the soldier so much in _Forever War_, **asterion**. Just put a small sum in the employee’s conservatively-invested account at the beginning of employment and let the accumulated interest do the rest! ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/14 "2009-07-09T17:27:43Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > One interesting aspect of this awesome question is that the pay received by the employee can be completely disproportionate to the cost to the employer, thanks to the wonders of compound interest (wasn’t that how they managed to pay the soldier so much in _Forever War_, **asterion**. Just put a small sum in the employee’s conservatively-invested account at the beginning of employment and let the accumulated interest do the rest! Orson Scott Card’s _Speaker for the Dead_ uses a similar ploy to make Ender rich as he travels between solar systems. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/15 "2009-07-09T17:59:40Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > And let’s not forget the tax issue: 3 years taxes or 20? It will probably require CPAs with Physics degrees… ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/16 "2009-07-09T20:01:37Z")
Management will argue 3 years. The TIS (Teamsters In Space) Union will argue 20 years. They will agree on 7.5 years with 2 cases of Tang per person. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/17 "2009-07-09T20:12:04Z")
Aboard ship the crew will be supplied with lodging, food, medical care and any miscellaneous benefits as part of their employment. And unless the trip involves some liberty port at the turnaround point, there would be no place to spend money anyway. By contrast any expenses the crew have back on Earth (a mortgage, child support, storage locker fees, taxes, etc.) will continue to need to be payed. So the pay rate would need to be Earth-based. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/18 "2009-07-09T23:21:23Z")
But what if the ship’s captain is an independent contractor? He owns his own ship, buys cargo at one port, and sells it at another. He and his crew live on the ship, and on board the ship, money can be spent on various luxuries (a larger berth, time at the viewport to watch the stars, the services of the ship’s [del]whore[/del]companion, etc.). Whenever they hit port, the workers have a few days’ liberty while the captain negotiates the next haul, during which time they can indulge in whatever enticements the port offers. In this case, both the employer and the crew are always in the same reference frame; doesn’t it make more sense to use that frame for the payscale, too? Now suppose that our independent-contractor captain is bought out by [del]Breya Andreysen[/del]some executive who mostly stays at home. The crew can’t tell the difference, as they’re still doing the same jobs they always have: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Should the payscale change all of a sudden just because of where the desk is where their checks are signed? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/19 "2009-07-09T23:45:55Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > One interesting aspect of this awesome question is that the pay received by the employee can be completely disproportionate to the cost to the employer, thanks to the wonders of compound interest (wasn’t that how they managed to pay the soldier so much in _Forever War_, **asterion**. Just put a small sum in the employee’s conservatively-invested account at the beginning of employment and let the accumulated interest do the rest! It can’t be too conservative otherwise inflation will eat away most of your savings. And lets hope your trip doesn’t end during an economic downturn. Really though, I don’t envision a lot of economic activity taking place under these circumstances. It may only be a short period of time to the crew, but what good does it do me to send a package that won’t be delivered for 20 years in my reference frame? ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411/20 "2009-07-10T02:02:27Z")
In [Alien](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)), the crew of the Nostromo (a mining ship) got a share of the profits. There’s a scene where the mechanics are arguing for a bigger share. A share of the profits would eliminate the need for complex temporal calculations regarding pay. This of course carries some risk to the crew in case no profits are to be had, but maybe the insurance companies can offer some kind of profit insurance. And to further entice capable personnel to space commerce, governments could make wages tax free (at least in the early days of space exploration). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-should-near-c-velocities-affect-pay-rate/502411.md?page=2)