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> NASA did offer an insurance scheme, but in the early days of space exploration, it didn’t cover the actual space flight part. The assumption that NASA or som

> NASA did offer an insurance scheme, but in the early days of space exploration, it didn’t cover the actual space flight part. The assumption that NASA or some other branch of the government wouldn't take care of the families of dead Apollo 11 astronauts is preposterous. We're talking about a project that was costing the country several percent of its GDP and it can't set aside a few million for the families? The government paid out an average of US$1.8 million for each of the 9/11 victims, for thousands of people, for something that the government wasn't responsible for. The astronauts may have signed some autographs for something extra, but even if there were no written insurance contract, it seems very unlikely that anyone would have been seriously worried that the families would end up on skid row. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensation_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11th_Victim_Compensa...

sowbug 3y ago
If there had been a catastrophe that called the whole program into question, NASA might have ceased to exist. Those with authority to pay out would have lost their power, and budgeted money would have vanished. These astronauts surely hoped they'd be among the first of many to explore space, but in that moment it was still possible they'd merely be the last of few. I know very little about 1960s American culture, so I don't know how well something like GoFundMe would have played back then. If the income-earning person in a family were incapacitated, was the societal expectation that the family should henceforth be taken care of by others? Or rather that the family identify a new income-earning person?
- pyuser583 3y ago
  The insurance policy would be made with an insurance company by the employer. NASA being dissolved wouldn’t affect the payout. In the 1960s insurance companies loved offering life insurance policies to federal employees. Federal employees were young, well educated, and in good enough health to work. These policies excluded extremely dangerous activities (like going to war).
  - generalizations 3y ago
    > These policies excluded extremely dangerous activities (like going to war). Or possibly, climbing into a rocket?
  - mandevil 3y ago
    Even going to war involved a huge mass of people, which made it easier to get statistical safety for the insurance company. For writing insurance the fact that just 24 people ever (even to this day!) have left Earth orbit meant that the risk pool just wasn't very large. Very small group and large, unknown risk- that's the sort of thing that an actuary really doesn't like working with. Like, if Apollo 13 didn't make it home, that's 1/8th of the total insurance population right there. What kind of price do you need to charge to cover that level of risk?
    - pyuser583 3y ago
      Actuaries could assume 100% death rate per astronaut per launch, and the large number of non-astronaut employees and small number of launches would lower the premiums a lot.
      - dotancohen 3y ago
        That was probably the calculation... and the reason for not insuring them.
  - sowbug 3y ago
    You might be replying to a different thread. We were discussing an extraordinary circumstance in which the government might "take care of the families of dead Apollo 11 astronauts" to make up for the space-exploration exclusion in the insurance that NASA actually offered. In other words, we know for a fact that there was no insurance.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
Any attempt to judge the US based on what it did decades later, or decades earlier, actively ignores the fact that the US isn't a stable country and simply changes heads of state, but is a country that radically changes what it considers the norm to be with every new president elected.
iancmceachern 3y ago
And the government also has yet to pay out for victims of Radiation poisoning at Rocky Flatts, a facility that was part of the Manhattan project. For every case where the government did right by these kinds of folks, there is another where they didn't. Rocky Flatts has some very interesting history. It's the only time when one us federal agency (FBI) raided a facility of another (DOE).

sowbug 3y ago

If there had been a catastrophe that called the whole program into question, NASA might have ceased to exist. Those with authority to pay out would have lost their power, and budgeted money would have vanished. These astronauts surely hoped they'd be among the first of many to explore space, but in that moment it was still possible they'd merely be the last of few. I know very little about 1960s American culture, so I don't know how well something like GoFundMe would have played back then. If the income-earning person in a family were incapacitated, was the societal expectation that the family should henceforth be taken care of by others? Or rather that the family identify a new income-earning person?

pyuser583 3y ago
The insurance policy would be made with an insurance company by the employer. NASA being dissolved wouldn’t affect the payout. In the 1960s insurance companies loved offering life insurance policies to federal employees. Federal employees were young, well educated, and in good enough health to work. These policies excluded extremely dangerous activities (like going to war).
- generalizations 3y ago
  > These policies excluded extremely dangerous activities (like going to war). Or possibly, climbing into a rocket?
- mandevil 3y ago
  Even going to war involved a huge mass of people, which made it easier to get statistical safety for the insurance company. For writing insurance the fact that just 24 people ever (even to this day!) have left Earth orbit meant that the risk pool just wasn't very large. Very small group and large, unknown risk- that's the sort of thing that an actuary really doesn't like working with. Like, if Apollo 13 didn't make it home, that's 1/8th of the total insurance population right there. What kind of price do you need to charge to cover that level of risk?
  - pyuser583 3y ago
    Actuaries could assume 100% death rate per astronaut per launch, and the large number of non-astronaut employees and small number of launches would lower the premiums a lot.
    - dotancohen 3y ago
      That was probably the calculation... and the reason for not insuring them.
- sowbug 3y ago
  You might be replying to a different thread. We were discussing an extraordinary circumstance in which the government might "take care of the families of dead Apollo 11 astronauts" to make up for the space-exploration exclusion in the insurance that NASA actually offered. In other words, we know for a fact that there was no insurance.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

Any attempt to judge the US based on what it did decades later, or decades earlier, actively ignores the fact that the US isn't a stable country and simply changes heads of state, but is a country that radically changes what it considers the norm to be with every new president elected.

iancmceachern 3y ago

And the government also has yet to pay out for victims of Radiation poisoning at Rocky Flatts, a facility that was part of the Manhattan project. For every case where the government did right by these kinds of folks, there is another where they didn't. Rocky Flatts has some very interesting history. It's the only time when one us federal agency (FBI) raided a facility of another (DOE).