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I should probably have been clearer. I understand you can insure all kinds of risks, and that you can ask an underwriter to insure against most anything. My que
by NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
I should probably have been clearer. I understand you can insure all kinds of risks, and that you can ask an underwriter to insure against most anything. My question is more whether this is a well-formed insurance market where coverage is available under economically realistic terms.
- gpm 5y agoI can't say that I'm aware of an active market for insurance similar to this, not that I would necessarily be aware of one. If one doesn't exist, that should just be a sign that the government really shouldn't be providing it either though, because it isn't profitable. The government isn't somehow better placed to insure R&D work (or whatever you want to call the work being discussed) than any other insurance company is.
- bluGill 5y agoThe government is better able to set a fixed budget though. R&D as in do X hours of work on FTL is much better than deliver FTL (I intentionally picked something impossible - though in a the world R&D should be about things you think are possible but are not sure of)
- gpm 5y agoWhat you're describing isn't a cost plus contract, it's a fixed cost contract for a study (assuming cost/hour is fixed). These exist, they're frequently a good idea. Cost plus would be "deliver a FTL ship, we'll pay you X * costs, no it doesn't really matter if you go 10x over what you initially quoted us for the work and still don't have the thing". You can see why contractors under that model are willing to make unrealistic quotes and promises about FTL, or for a real world example why SLS is many years and many billions of dollars behind schedule.