Break-even distance for sending data at c versus sending an FTL hard drive?

In the mid-21st century, humanity has an interplanetary colony system principally spanning the Moon, Mars, and Titan (as per usual). The furthest established colony is on Proxima b. Humans have FTL drives that can reach 12,500 times c without time dilation effects, and which can accelerate to this speed in under a minute. However, we are still reliant on light-speed signal transmission. We send data back and forth very frequently between our colonies.

Some people on Proxima b, while waiting for the previous Summer Olympics results, figure that beyond a certain distance, it's more efficient to just strap an FTL drive to a hard drive and lob it upwards into space than it is to send a signal and wait for it to arrive at c. A hard drive will need time to accelerate and decelerate to avoid damage, and it will need to be processed at its destination to access the data. This processing could take less than a minute if, say, a satellite net of some sort catches it, plugs it in, and then relays the data at c to the colony below, or several hours if the hard drive has to actually land. The FTL drive can launch from the ground. But let's say they've already got the former system set up.

This is a two-part logistical problem. Firstly, what is the break-even distance for sending a light-speed signal versus sending an FTL hard drive? It's not simply a matter of the distance from the source at which an FTL hard drive overtakes a signal at c, it also involves what people would find more convenient, and it might involve signal decay by the inverse square law (I don't know). For example, I don't think an FTL hard drive would be worth it between the Earth and the Moon - 3 seconds of ping time beats the processing time, even if it gives Lunar Dota 2 players a headache.

Secondly, given the colonies I've noted, do any of them have differences in their maximum and minimum distances from each other such that they would pass break-even at different times, and one method would be more convenient than the other for part of the time? In such a case, would one method of data transmission still be preferable to the other?

(I'd like to credit xkcd for partial inspiration.)

posted about 8 years ago

undine_centimeter‭

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