But what if aliens only take Blorgs, the accepted currency in the rest of the galaxy? And you just know the Quid to Blorg exchange rate is going to be astronomical, so to speak. Sigh. Just another way for the weary traveler to get screwed in a foreign locale.
New currency for space travellers
Scientists have come up with a new currency designed to be used by inter-planetary travellers.
It is called the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination, or Quid.
It is designed to withstand the stresses of space travel and has no sharp edges or chemicals that could hurt space tourists.
It was designed for the foreign exchange company Travelex by scientists from the National Space Centre and the University of Leicester.
“None of the existing payment systems we use on earth – like cash, credit or debit cards – could be used in space,” said Professor George Fraser from the University of Leicester.
“Anything with sharp edges, like coins, would be a risk to astronauts while the chips and magnetic strips used in our cards on Earth would be damaged beyond repair by cosmic radiation,” he added.
[Travelex] is currently quoting the currency at £6.25 to the Quid.
A solution in search of a problem, unfortunately. Humans are showing no real signs of getting far into space. We haven’t even been past LEO in over 30 years.
Still makes more sense than these:
The only time we need money is when we come to planets like this.
Wouldn’t any major Casino’s “Poker Chips” have worked just as well?! And at least those would be redeemable world wide. And it the most likely place where these “QUIDs” are going to be spent, anyway. But I quess NASA and friends didn’t want to associate gambling with space exploration. Even though it’s all been a big gamble for decades. I’ll bet the only use these things will get aboard the ISS is in their poker games. That’s probably their sole intended use, on the sly. They needed an international currency, that wasn’t so obviously a high-tech poker chip.
And the exchange rates will be totally out of date when they’re sent and received between the galaxies… And seriously… this will be yet another collectible for idiots who watch Star Trek.
I forgot what I was going to type after I sliced a finger on one those damned sharp-edged coins in my pocket. Damn. Happens all the time.
D’oh! Damn block quotes!
“Anything with sharp edges, like coins, would be a risk to astronauts” riiiiight
Smells like a British version of The Onion, would that be The Garlic?
Funny, we have barely managed to leave the solar system and yet plans for domination of the galactic economy are already in place.
At this rate we will have the entire galaxy cluster theoretically conquered by the end of the decade.
10 – Thomas Brawley,
How was it outside the solar system? I’ve only been outside in the simulations at the Hayden Planetarium’s Virtual Universe.
Other than Dan Quayle*, you’re the first person I’ve met that made it outside of the solar system.
* The specific quote to which I refer was “It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
#11, Scott, best I can hope for is to get the “1 gram of ashes onto the Moon” deal, and that’s not even here yet.
http://www.space.com/news/space_memorials_041020.html
I think their a little bit ahead of the curve here, and in any case, for a galactic currency I can think of nothing more relevant than species specific feces. Difficult to counterfeit, easy to extract energy from (just plop into any standard converter) and everybody has some. Making change could turn into a sticky wicket, but all transactions could simply be rounded up, making that problem irrelevant. And it’s a perfect way to pay taxes, just send a few bricks, fresh from the kiln, to the IRS.
What? No Astrodollars or Nuyens?
If they put a real gold coin inside that Teflon, it would have real value, and you wouldn’t need to take it back to Earth to exchange it for a currency that has real value.
Not only that, but it would have more purchasing power. I don’t think 6¼ British pounds ($12.50 US) is enough to buy anything in space. Operating a space hotel would be very costly, so staying in one would be expensive. A gold-based quid would be worth over $100, making it actually useful for space-based transactions.
#16 – Great Genius,
Why assume that gold has value everywhere?
Why assume that Teflon has value anywhere?
#18 – Great Genius,
I don’t. I think this idea is incredibly silly, or at the very least, premature by a large factor.
Aliens advanced enough to get here would likely have no need, or even concept of, money. By mining asteroids, any rare metal, and most common elements, are available; material is endless. Robots and self assembling factories make labor a non-issue as well. What is there to buy that you cannot simply make with no effort, and then, why charge your fellow creature for something when you can make as many as needed, as cheaply as the first one that rolled out? The economics of absolute plenty are strange indeed. . .
Really, money only makes sense in a scarce situation. Perhaps that explains why there is so much scarcity when we really have plenty to go ’round in many ways. At any rate, these people seem to be missing the point entirely, and I suggest they get into the casino chip business; those things are due for a redesign.