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There will be significant launch insurance contracts written to protect the company against such a scenario.
by thematt 12y ago
There will be significant launch insurance contracts written to protect the company against such a scenario.
- notahacker 12y agoDrawing up those insurance contracts is a non-trivial endeavour too. There are specialist space divisions of major insurers who can package up space reinsurance as a nice investment whose returns are uncorrelated with market returns, but they're already in a situation where in years where one launch incident involving a sufficiently expensive satellite payload can wipe out the profits for the whole space insurance industry in a year. They make it back in future years because of the continuing demand for satellite launches. Now imagine there are people on board, the rocket is headed to colonise Mars and the CEO is on board. Not all of that risk to the future of private sector space industry as a whole is insurable.