A lot of Krugman's academic work on economics, before he became an NYT columnist, was focused on transport costs: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/kr

A lot of Krugman's academic work on economics, before he became an NYT columnist, was focused on transport costs: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/krugman_lecture.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/krugman_lecture.p... https://pr.princeton.edu/pictures/g-k/krugman/krugman-increasing_returns_1991.pdf https://pr.princeton.edu/pictures/g-k/krugman/krugman-increa... The interstellar element feels like an extension of that.