I think loss of a crew early in the program might indeed do a private space company in. Assuming the engineering of the launch abort system is any good, though

I think loss of a crew early in the program might indeed do a private space company in. Assuming the engineering of the launch abort system is any good, though, I think it's a lot more likely that the first "disaster" will be an incident where the launcher is destroyed but the crew survives. It's possible that a situation like that might actually increase the public's confidence in the company.