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> The same law applies to global fuel transport: can you export oil halfway around the planet, on a boat that itself runs on oil? There's a rocket equation hidden in that. But the constants are really good (oil is energy-dense; planets are small); so it's not an important law that's ever-present in economics, in the way the rocket equation is ever-present in space. (Was it ever, in history?)

Not for oil-powered boats, but for coal-powered steamboats, cargo size taken by coal was a significant factor. Significant enough that sail boats where still the way to get to New Zealand long after coal-power became ubiquitous.

I like a little too much this morbid idea of a big ball of domesticated horses, passengers and food, slowly cutting loose bits of its horse-o-sphere to reach an absurdly far away destination. The ecological impact of the horses released to fend for themselves would be profound at the outset... But you could just go Mongolian and have the humans make jerky out of and otherwise consume the horses, for extra mileage.

Not just kill them to make jerky, but bring nursing mares along, using them to convert human-inedible plants into milk products. You can also make a small slit and drink their blood for the same effect.

Looks like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Gap

Thanks! That's the one.

> (Was it ever, in history?)

Oh yeah, the current situation is highly abnormal.

With one giant exception : wind-powered ships do not suffer from this issue !

https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they...

https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/orbi...

> Using the figures from the Price Edict of Diocletian, we tend to estimate that river transport was five times cheaper than land transport, and sea-transport was twenty times cheaper than land transport.

(Not sure if that river transport of bulk grains was mostly by boats or by barges pulled by pack animals ?)

In fact, Rome itself not only got started as a cross-roads/waterways/seaways (large enough river for big sea ships to go up) for people to gather and trade, it could never have reached its ancient size of 0.5-1 M people without sea shipping !

> Was it ever, in history?

Mayan city states were limited in size to how far warriors and their servants could march carrying their own food. No pack animals.

For land transport, the typical solution is supply dumps over a large number of partial trips.

Your caravan has a max range of N days; you instead go N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your supplies, and then return. Do that twice.

For your third trip, you can load up your caravan, travel N/3 days to your supply dump, and reload using half the cached supplies. Now you travel another N/3 days, drop 1/3 of your load, and then return, stopping for the cached supplies again on the return.

You still consume increasing amounts of resources, but unlike rockets or boats you don't have to carry them all from the start.

A reasoned book on Central Asian conquest by the Russian made this point over and over. The Russians needed support from their own step allies to handle the large number of camels. The Kazars knew where to put supply dumbs and such.

Ah not good. Now you got me thinking of eating the horses rather than jettisoning them.

Amundsen's dogs were not only the transportation plan for the Norwegian South Pole expedition, they were also part of the meal plan.

> Was it ever, in history? Maybe not boats, but aircraft. Operation Black-buck in The Falklands war: https://vulcantothesky.org/articles/falklands-war-1982-opera... as another possible example

> Was it ever, in history?

Perhaps Water + People over Oceans. More sails --> More people --> More water --> Bigger boat --> More sails, etc etc.