It stands to reason that one of those two hundred and twenty ships, not counting the
Galactica itself, just might have been a step down from a prison barge--namely, a garbage scow.
And who is to say that the
Rising Star did not once belong to Baltar, BEFORE it belonged to Sire Uri, or that Baltar himself did not once have to salvage, restore, and/or convert a garbage scow just so he might have his own ship?