--- title: The Case for Drone Cargo Ships description: Learn why we don't have unmanned cargo ships, hear about a plan to pay parents to stop multigenerational poverty and more. canonical: https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-14T16:01:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:01:15.873Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Case for Drone Cargo Ships og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Case for Drone Cargo Ships twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Case for Drone Cargo Ships by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 14, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 14, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Why don’t we have unmanned cargo ships?**](http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/12/9504761/rolls-royce-autonomous-unmanned-shipping-illegal) By Amar Toor in the Verge **2\.** [**Can we pay parents to lift their children — and themselves — out of poverty?**](http://nationswell.com/family-rewards-reduce-poverty-in-america/) By Chris Peak in NationSwell **3\.** [**Bring back house calls.**](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/opinion/bring-back-house-calls.html) By Sandeep Jauhar in the New York Times **4\.** [**“Catastrophe bonds” could raise money to fight pandemics before they grow out of control.**](http://larrysummers.com/2015/10/13/pandemic-emergency-financing-has-the-potential-to-be-a-win-win-win/) By Larry Summers in his blog **5\.** [**In Europe and at home, here’s the case for opening borders.**](http://time.com/4062074/migrants-open-borders/) By Bryan Caplan in Time  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/"},"headline":"The Case for Drone Cargo Ships","datePublished":"2015-10-14T16:01:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:01:15.873Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/","keywords":["Innovation","poor","doctors","epidemic","borders"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4072952/drone-cargo-ships/","name":"The Case for Drone Cargo Ships"}}]}] ```