ARTICLE IN PRESS

Acta Astronautica 66 (2010) 16331638

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Acta Astronautica
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

Space tourism risks: A space insurance perspective

Denis Bensoussan
Hiscox, France

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 16 June 2009
Received in revised form
24 December 2009
Accepted 5 January 2010
Available online 24 February 2010

Space transportation is inherently risky to humans, whether they are trained astronauts
or paying tourists, given that spaceight is still in its relative infancy. However, this is
easy to forget when subjected to the hype often associated with space tourism and the
ventures seeking to enter that market.
The development of commercial spaceight constitutes a challenge as much as a
great opportunity to the insurance industry as new risks emerge and standards, policies
and procedures to minimise/mitigate and cover them still to be engineered.
Therefore the creation of a viable and affordable insurance regime for future space
tourists is a critical step in the development of a real space tourism market to address
burning risk management issues that may otherwise ultimately hamper this nascent
industry before it has a chance to prove itself.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Space
Tourism
Risks
Insurance
Liability

Amateurs talk propellant, professional talk insurance.

These were the words of Pete Bahn, Founder of TGV
rockets at the Space Access 07 Conference in Phoenix.1
With Scaled Composites dramatic accident a few months
later, Bahns new Law of Rocketry is a sad reminder that
rocket engines are associated with tremendous risks and
that it is an activity where insurance contribution is of
utmost importance. While more of an industrial rather than
an aerospace accident, it does generates an awakening
among an industry that has primarily focused on building
vehicles, raising money, and enhancing its public prole, on
possible response to such tragic events from the insurance
industry as reected by the current mounting interest on
risk management and insurance topics.
Space transportation is inherently risky to humans,
whether they are trained astronauts or paying tourists,
given that spaceight is still in its relative infancy.
However, it is easy to forget such blunt truth when

E-mail address: denis.bensoussan@hiscox.com

Bahn also said that Insurance is the single biggest concern of the
space tourism industry. TGV is an acronym for Two Guys and a Van.
Bahns pragmatic operational approach is emphasized in the Michelle-B
rocket design: a single stage, suborbital, manned rocket vehicle. The
Michelle-B would be capable of vertical take-off, carrying one metric ton
and a human crew to 100 km. See www.tgv-rockects.com

subjected to the hype often associated with space tourism

and the ventures seeking to enter that market.
However, such statement suggests space tourism
business does not have its head entirely in the clouds. In
addition to the development of a sound business case for
space tourism as suggested by Futrons market study,2
space tourism professionals are expected to investigate
such down-to-earth topics as space vehicle and passenger
insurance among others critical issues like space law and
regulations; environmental impact concerns; and passenger medical and tness screening/training processes.
2009 and 2010 are generally perceived as bridges
years toward the rst commercial ights in 20112012.
Therefore the time is ripe for entrepreneurs, brokers and
insurers to step-in and identify their respective concerns,
requirements and negotiate risk transfer and insurance
solutions to address the burning issues that may otherwise ultimately hamper the industry before it has a
chance to prove itself.
Space tourism exposure to the space insurance
industry scrutiny and benchmarking will provide a

0094-5765/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.01.009

2
Space Tourism Market Study, from FUTRON Corporation, October
2002, A Fresh Look at Space Tourism Demand, from FUTRON
Corporation, June 2006 and Suborbital Space Demand Revisited, from
FUTRON Corporation, August 2006.

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D. Bensoussan / Acta Astronautica 66 (2010) 16331638

valuable opportunity to conduct necessary reality checks

of the proposed space activities or applications and better
balance the conicting interests of business and dreams. It
is a fantastic opportunity to gauge and stimulate the
interest of the space community towards a sound risk
assessment, prevention culture and the development of
risk transfer strategies.
The creation of a viable and affordable insurance
regime for future space tourists would be a critical element
in the development of the overall space tourism market.
It constitutes a real challenge as much as a great
opportunity to the insurance industry as the full range of
risks is not yet identied and standards, policies and
procedures to minimise/mitigate and cover risks have still
to be engineered.
In this view, we will analyse the most stringent issues
challenging future buyers and sellers of insurance covers
from an underwriter of space risks perspective.
1. Space tourism: risk identication

death is an order of magnitude higher than for other

extreme experiences like bungee or base jump or
acrobatic ight.6 Potential customers need to be explicitly
warned of the full dangers of space travel. Here is the
paradox of space tourism, torn between the promotion of
risk and the promise of maximum safety, between
marketing and reality.
1.2. Spacecraft damage insurance
One of the rst items the insurance market will have to
determine is the nature of space tourism-related risks in
order to apply dedicated assessment skills and underwriting methods and criteria.
A symbolic yet currently hotly debated issue within the
insurance industry relates to the technical nature of the
future insurance coverage: is the lead vehicle hull risk an
aviation risk or a space risk? Far from being a trivial issue,
the answer to this question must be addressed through its
various characteristics and will greatly inuence the
overall structure and cost of the insurance package.

1.1. Spaceight is a risky business

Historically, 4% of the people who have own in space
have perished according to NASA.3 Such records together
with the highly visible Challenger and Columbia disasters
and more recently with Scaled Composite accident and
Soyuz repeated near-catastrophic re-entries, tend to prove
that Space transportation is inherently risky as spaceight, commercial or otherwise, is still in its relative
infancy and rocket technology is all but fully mastered.
In its landmark report, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board warned that because of the dangers of
ascent and re-entry, because of the hostility of the space
environment, and because we are still relative newcomers
to this realm, operation [y] of all human spaceight must
be viewed as a developmental activity. It is still far from a
routine, operational undertaking. Federal Aviation Administration Associate Administrator Dr. George C. Nield
once said that Passengers will be riding a vessel packed
with a volatile mix of carefully processed chemical
ingredients, thousands of interdependent parts, and
extremely sophisticated software; and they will be bound
for an inhospitable environment far, far away from where
they bought their tickets. Private human spaceight is like
climbing Mount Everest with a lot farther to fall.
Space tourism risks are often downplayed or forgotten
and it is easy to get lured in the hype and glossy
marketing that is often associated with this activity and
the ventures seeking to serve that emerging market.4
Behind the smoke screen created by glossy brochures,
websites and public relations stunts boasting recreation in
the fantastic space environment and the thrill of a daring
life-threatening adventure to would-be clients, lie space
travel grim reliability and safety records.5 The risk of
3
Informed consent for space faring passengers, from Tracey L.
Knutson, SpaceNews, April 30, 2007.
4
Risk comes from not knowing what youre doing, Warren Buffett.
5
Of the 4378 space launches conducted worldwide between 1957
and 1999, 390 launches failed resulting in a success rate of 91.1%, from

1.2.1. Legal
The issue of dening outer space is a question of
demarcating the boundary between outer space and the
atmosphere. Since 1959, the issue of dening outer space
remains a topic for deliberation in the United Nations
Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
(UNCPUOS). However, to this day all efforts to draw an
internationally recognised line between the atmosphere
and outer space have end up in vain since the international
community has not yet reached a consensus due to many
political, military, diplomatic, legal and other concerns. As
a result there is no international legal denition of the
demarcation between air space and outer space.
Two main delimitations of the atmosphere and outer
space are generally mentioned.
If one view suggests that outer space begins at an
altitude inaccessible for aircrafts with aerodynamic
principles of sustaining the ight, i.e. 3040 km above
sea level, the Karman7 line which lies at an altitude of
(footnote continued)
Space Launch Vehicle Reliability, I-Shih Chang, Crosslink, Aerospace
Corporation magazine, 2000. According to NASA, 4% of the people who
have own in space have perished (See supra. 3).
6
Talking of extreme sports or adventures safety records, very often
their inner purpose dictates that they involve danger even if it is makebelieve danger. To a greater extent as in sky-diving or bungee jumping,
what is really being tested is pure nerve and resistance to a situation of
perceived physical danger rather than actual risk of physical danger
per se. In this respect, without going so far as comparing it to the Russian
Roulette space travel would be enormously more dangerous. Perhaps
more relevant in term of degree of risk is the example of Mount Everest
climbing. Since 1990 until today, there have been 1,640 people who
ascended Mount Everest of whom 73 have died. The fatality rate is thus
about 4.4% (fatality rate is dened as successful summits compared to
fatalities). Source: www.mounteverest.com.
7
When studying aeronautics and astronautics in the 1950s,
Theodore von Karman, a HungarianAmerican engineer and physicist,
calculated that above an altitude of roughly 100 km, in accordance with
the celestial mechanics law, a vehicle would have to y faster than
orbital velocity (7.9 km per second) in order to derive sufcient
aerodynamic lift from the atmosphere to support itself.

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100 km (62.1 miles) above the Earths surface remains

nowadays the most commonly used reference to dene
the boundary between the Earths atmosphere and outer
space. This denition is accepted by the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale (FAI).
Reaching outer space is the raison detre and the top
selling argument for all space tourism projects in order to
grant potential customers astronaut wings. Given the
generally admitted denition of 100 km, most vehicles
have targeted to reach outer space and as a result would
qualify as spacecraft. It is therefore logical that a spacecraft ying in outer space would be considered as a space
risk. Therefore, from a legal standpoint there is no
ambiguity as to the nature of space tourism-related risks.
1.2.2. Technology
When observing space tourism vehicle designs, it is a
fact that most of them are largely inspired if not similar in
their external appearance to the designs of today business
jets. One reason is that aeronautics principles and aircraft
jet propulsion are the safest and more reliable solutions to
timely reach the outer fringes of the air space. Another
great incentive behind these designs is also to benet from
the aeronautics proven and experienced technologies.
Another less obvious reason may lie in the interest to have
these new suborbital vehicles look as familiar as possible
with today jets to give some measure of condence and
comfort to potential customers, investors and insurers.
However, beyond external resemblance, a sea of
differences distinguishes jet aircrafts from space tourism
vehicles.
The main difference and the one dramatically increasing the space vehicle risk prole is the propulsion mode:
turbojet running on jet fuel as opposed to rocket engine
running on liquid oxygen/hydrogen, ergols, methane/
propane.8
Other major differences involve re-entry technology,
redundancy scheme, safety devices and procedures and
ground maintenance and vehicle handling.
In addition, full consideration should be given to the
issue of certication and licensing. The two respective
regimes are widely different in terms of constraints. The
rigid ICAO-led certication regime with its stringent
obligations for civil aircrafts at equipments and systems
levels explained by its vocation as a mass transportation
mode, as opposed to more accommodating domestic
licensing regimes based on requirements and best
practices for launch systems and spacecrafts.
1.2.3. Human experience
The journey to outer space will be a totally new
experience which would have no similarity with air travel.
The main differences will relate to the internal and
external environment, the physical and psychological
effects on the passenger, travels danger perception by
the passenger, the cost and the purpose of the travel: mass
8

Statistics show that among the causes of failure for space launch
vehicles worldwide from 1980 to 1999, propulsion subsystem problems
predominated (56% of launch failures). That particular subsystem
appears to be the Achilles heel of launch vehicles.

1635

commodity transportation at affordable price as opposed

to an exclusive, dangerous, gratifying and costly adventure.
1.2.4. What is the insurance industry answer?
The prototypical nature of the risks combined with a
high degree of new technology and the inadequacy or lack
of relevant historic statistics compel a case by case
analysis from specialist underwriters.
For this reason, this risk would in priority be best
addressed by the space insurance market with its
systematic technical analysis and tailor made coverages
rather than the aviation insurance market which is illequipped for such unique/new risk as it is more used to
deal with large eet, common designs patterns and mass
transportation.
When vehicles will reach reasonable levels of reliability, design and equipments communality, ight frequency and commercial sustainability the insurance
market forces and underwriters will be able work out
insurance solutions of lesser exceptional nature.
1.3. Global risk picture
1.3.1. Spacecraft physical damage (hull risk)
The primary risk which insurers would consider and
analyse is related to physical damages that may affect Space
Tourism vehicles themselves in the course of their operations. Such risk is usually called within the marine, aviation
and space insurance markets the hull risk. By extension to
space tourism, Hull in the insurance policies would refer to
hulls, machinery, instruments and the entire equipment of
the vehicle. It essentially consists in all risks of physical loss
or damage to the vehicle whilst on the ground and in
transit from any cause except those specically excluded.
Standard exclusions are: wear, tear and gradual deterioration, mechanical breakdown, war, strikes, riots, civil
commotions, effects of radiation or nuclear device. However, the term all risks can be misleading as it does not
include loss of use, delay, or consequential loss.
What the policy covers is the reinstatement of the
aircraft to its pre-loss condition if repairable damage is
involved; or some other form of settlement in the event
that more substantial damage is sustained. The form of
settlement will depend on the policy conditions. In
practice, an indemnity will be paid by the insurers to
the owner of the vehicle to repair for the consequences of
the event and revert the owner to the status quo ante. The
indemnity is generally based on an agreed value or the
replacement cost of the vehicle.
Today, the vast majority of aircraft and satellite hull
policies are arranged on an Agreed Value Basis. This
provides that the Insurers agree with the Insured for the
policy period, the value of the asset and as such, in the
event of total loss, this Agreed Value is payable in full.
1.3.2. Spacecraft liabilities
1.3.2.1. Passenger. Passenger liability insurance is not requested under current US Federal Regulation. Under this
legal regime, potential space tourists will be ying at their
own risk by signing waiver of recourse on the basis of

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informed consent. The legal value of these waivers is

questioned by US trial lawyers. It is likely to be challenged
before US States courts if waiver regulation is not endorsed at State Law level. The denition of the critical
informed consent requirement may also represent an
unreachable objective due to the uncertain nature, extent
and availability of the information to be provided to the
potential passenger and its inherent impenetrability to
the non-professional.
Faced with such eventuality and guided by a wise risk
management strategy, space tourism ventures would
likely be inclined to buy space passenger liability
insurance to cover for bodily injury claims in spite or in
addition of the waivers.

operator and ll the passenger coverage hole. As such, it

would also represent a promising development opportunity for specialist insurers who currently provides
personal accident for professional and non-professional
astronauts on the International Space Stations.
The covers to be proposed to the space passengers
would be no different from existing astronaut covers
and would be based on the following terms and conditions:

 personal accident benets would be payable in the


1.3.2.2. Third parties. The FAA, as of today the only institution that has dened, within its licence framework,
rules applicable to Space Tourism,9 requires a compulsory
insurance cover for Space Tourism vehicles ying from the
United States. Such cover will also likely be requires for
vehicles ying from other countries within the licence/
authorisation framework as for traditional rocket launches.
The amount of this compulsory cover may vary
depending of the licensing authority assessment of the
risk and the determination of the Maximum Probable Loss
which is the greatest dollar amount of loss for bodily injury
or property damage that is reasonably expected to result
from a licensed or permitted activity. However, the
required amount will not exceed USD 500,000,000 given
that third party claims in excess of this amount will be paid
by the United States Government up to USD 1,500,000,000.
1.3.3. Spaceight participant personal accident
This risk calls for an essential scrutiny within the space
tourism risk typology, rst as a potential source of concerns
for personal accident insurers due to possibility of mega
exposure during VIP or high net worth ights featuring
millionaires and celebrities. As a result, especially if such
ights are considered, the risk of passenger personal
accident under or uninsurability due to shortage or lack
of available insurance capacity should be anticipated by
operators and eventually mitigated so as not to become an
obstacle to space tourism business development.
Even if not mandatory for the passengers for the time
being this may well changed with the rst commercial
ights approaching personal accident insurance would
be used to offset liability waivers contracted with the
9
Under current US Law (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14,
Chapter III, in accordance with the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act passed by Congress in 2004, the so-called FAA rules for Space
Tourism), the licence attribution process conducted by the FAA includes
a hazard analysis which aim is to assess third party liability risks
potentially resulting from Space Tourism activities. The hazard analysis
is based on the following elements:

 Likelihood of any hazard causing death or serious injury to the public

must be extremely remote.

 Likelihood of any hazard causing property damage to the public

must be remote.

 Major safety-critical system damage, reduction in safety margins or

signicant increase in crew workload also to be remote.

event the passenger dies or loses limbs or in case of

accident during the training or expedition period
(including re-entry);
provision of an indemnity for travel costs incurred due
to the inability to go on a booked spaceight as a result
of accident or illness.

The operative time of the cover would include the training

period plus the ight.
In respect of the sum insured, the insurance market can
currently provide standard capital insured from USD
2,000,000 up to USD 5,000,000 but in no event exceeding
ve times the annual salary. As mentioned earlier the issue
of accumulation and limitation of capital insured aboard a
single spaceight will have to be addressed. Rates generally
based on the capital insured, will also strongly reect in the
case of space tourism the valuation of the pure risk of
spacecraft failure during pre-ight and ight phases.
Standard exclusions would apply including the preexisting condition exclusion clause.

1.3.4. Ancillary covers

Other risks while not directly related to space tourism
may exist in connection to the operation and trade of
suborbital ights. They would be no different to the risks
related to the normal conduct of a media-sensitive
business and covers would be generally available in the
insurance market. Within this category, the risk of
operator loss of revenue from business interruption
appears to be of critical importance. Regulators, nanciers,
primary space risks insurers and operators will likely be
interested to implement such cover so as to guarantee the
continuity of the business and the protection of their
investment in the event of a major accident. Political risks
and terrorism risks would also qualify for this category.

1.4. What will happen in case of accident?

It is a matter of when, not if!!
An accident depending on the circumstances could
jeopardise the entire nascent personal spaceight industry. Since the prospect of an accident should be taken as a
certainty rather than a mere possibility, it is key that
forward planning directed to the prevention, management
and mitigation of the impact of such dramatic event is to
be included from the beginning in space tourism operators business plans.

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2. Risk assessment and valuation

2.1. Insurability of the risk
2.1.1. Key factors
2.1.1.1. Safety gures comparison10. Available statistics for
the future space tourism vehicles are scarce and prospective at best at this stage of the development curve but
the most commonly referred reliability gure targeted is 1
fatal accident expected for 50,000 ights.11
For comparison sake, civil airliners reliability statistics
for the 20002005 period show 1 fatal accident in 8
million ights for 1st world airlines on international
routes to 1 in 2 million for developing world airlines.12

2.1.1.2. Testing. For nascent activities based on novel

technologies, extensive testing and qualication is of
paramount importance. It essentially allows to demonstrate the ightworthiness, safety and reliability of the
vehicle and to qualify its design and processes as well as
providing useful data related to the operational reliability,
robustness and tolerance of the vehicle and its components to extreme stress and conditions. Test campaigns
10
Such comparison of reliability/safety records between different
transportations systems or activities invariably leads to the vast subject
of the acceptability of the risk by the public and the related notion of
perceived risk versus actual risk. The subject has been extensively
discussed and we will not address it in this paper, however, interesting
information on what may be acceptable risk comes from a recent study
on product liability cases and jury perception before the US Courts
conducted jointly by Design News and the Chicago Law Firm of Rooks,
Pitts and Poust. Nearly half the jurors participating in the survey
believed that a product should be taken off the market if only one person
in a million is seriously injured while using it.
11
Will Whitehorn, President Virgin Galactic in a keynote speech at
ESA ESCL Practioners Forum Space TourismLegal and Policy Aspects,
ESA, Paris, March 17, 2006.
The expected reliability of future commercial space vehicles including
Virgin Galactics has fuelled a vast and interesting debate which remains
so far unsettled. Various estimations have been proposed. For example,
in an article published in 2004 on the online publication Tech Central
Station titled Is Space Tourism Ready for Takeoff? Probably not,
Alexander Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University, argues that spacecrafts are today not reliable enough to support
Space Tourism, and will not be for some time: Rockets remain among
the least safe means of transportation ever invented. Since 1980, the
United States has launched some 440 orbital launch rockets (not
including the Space Shuttle). Nearly ve percent of those rockets have
experienced total failure [y]. As for the space shuttle, two have been
destroyed in 129 missions, both with the loss of the entire crew (14
astronauts) which gives roughly a 2% death rate per astronaut-ight, and
an average failure rate of nearly one in every 60 missions (the original
disaster potential was estimated during shuttle development at one
every 75 missions). Using an extrapolation based on reliability
probability of space launches, Mr. Tabarrok argues that vehicles that
would suffer failures only once every 10,000 ights will not emerge until
the 22nd century. Critics of this view have argued that it was unwise to
compare SpaceShipOne and other suborbital reusable vehicles with
expendable rockets and the space shuttle and that there is reason to
believe that due to their specic low-risk design such spacecrafts would
reach reliabilities of 1 in 10,000 or better within years, rather than
centuries.
12
From Airline Safety: Where are we?, Arnold Barnett, George
Eastman Professor of Management Science, MIT Sloan School of
Management. Arnold Barnett is one of the US foremost authorities on
aviation security.

1637

for new civil aircraft generally span over several hundreds

hours of ights.
Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures have announced
extensive ground and ight testings and validation
combined with 50 to 100 ight tests before 1st commercial ight.13 The extent, exhaustiveness and the success of
the test campaign will play an immense role in the
assessment of the primary spaceight risk by the insurers
and to an extent in the reliability and the attractiveness of
the activity for the general public.
2.1.1.3. Flight environment control. One important condition of the overall spaceight assurability would be the
passengers health condition and their capacity to bear the
physical and psychological constraints specic to ying
into space and the space environment. Flying to the fringe
of outer space and spending few minutes in the space
environment will require clear health condition and adequate preparation even if lighter for the private passenger
than for professional astronauts.
In this respect, when boarding the spacecraft, passengers should have been trained and cleared through medical
checks and pre-ight training. It would be an essential
condition precedent the formation of future personal
accident insurance contracts and operator liability covers.
2.1.1.4. Maximisation of the passenger safety. Operators
would also have to demonstrate that they have taken every possible action at every step of the design, tests, operation of the spacecraft to ensure that passengers remain
safe and healthy during and after the ight. Safety would
have to be the primary focus and responsibility of the
operators and should be at the heart of the whole space
tourism business model. Safety should hold absolute sway
over competing priorities like optimising performance,
lower costs and reusability which should only come secondary to providing the most protected and least stressful
environment to the amateur space traveller. This is not
merely a moral concern, but essential business practice.
This could be achieved through the implementation of
various active or passive protective devices and procedures aimed at preventing the spacecraft failure and
ensuring the spacecraft and passengers survivability in
the event of failure.
Safety procedures and devices could range from
traditional cabin pressurisation and protection, g-constrained trajectories to more innovative concepts like
pressure suits, helmets, internal and external airbags,
ejection capsule and parachutes.
2.2. The nal underwriting frontier
2.2.1. Pricing methods and criteria of the pure space risks
There is a consensus among operators, brokers and
the insurance markets that maiden ights will be
uninsurable and that premiums will remain very high
13
We are planning 50 test ights before we go up so we will be
condent of getting it right, Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Group,
Sunday Mirror, May 18, 2008.

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until commercial spacecrafts produce 5 to 15 ights

without accident. At this point only the amount of data
available to underwriters will allow an adequate assessment of the reliability of the vehicles and potentially lead
to review the pricing.
The pure space risk element will be the main driver for
the assurability and the denition of the coverage
conditions and price of space tourism insurance. It will
be assessed and valued by the underwriter in no different
fashion that the other traditional space risks by applying
veried methods and criteria to this new space activity:
the underwriter will appreciate the intrinsic quality of the
risk.
The major criteria to assess the quality of the risk
would lay on the analysis and valuation of the technical
reliability of the spacecraft. Of the multiple elements to be
taken into consideration, the know-how, experience and
reputation of the prime manufacturer and major subcontractors, the heritage of the design, critical components and production methods, the rationale behind the
technical choices and nally the results of the test and
validation campaign will rank highest.
Other important factors will shape the space underwriter decision. While variations in respect of assurability,
conditions and premium will exist between underwriters,
they will essentially use the same factors pool. The
variations will rather depend of their respective underwriting philosophy and how they perceive and weight
these factors.
Beyond expected consideration to insurance business
basics related to securing underwriting prot and risks
portfolio balance, underwriters will give specic consideration to the overall business sustainability due to space
tourism limited, niche market and inherent fragile nature.
The incurred volatility and elasticity of the risk and
revenues and premium supply continuity will have a
strong inuence in the assessment.
2.2.2. Risk management strategy
Since there is no data and history for this activity,
operators will have to explain to the underwriter exactly
what they are doing, how they are doing it and justify
their technical choices.
In this respect, which factors would help operators get
better prices and conditions?
The capacity to demonstrate that passenger safety is
the top priority and dominates every business, design and
operational choices would be seen as very positive. A
successful demonstration will allow the underwriter to
acknowledge the operator sound risk management philosophy and that a design-to-safety approach has been
adopted and supersedes every other requirement.

Other positive factors will include:

 the largest possible use of proven, mature technologies





and conservative heritage designs with lots of margins

and redundancies;
an extensive test and certication campaign enabling
the collection and analysis of relevant reliability and
safety records;
the spacecraft capacity to prevent, mitigate and
survive accidents and protect passenger safety in all
circumstances (crashworthiness);
the prevention and limitation of the operator liability
exposure to claims through the implementation of
waivers, disclaimers, hold harmless agreements and
the application of friendly law and jurisdiction in the
spaceight contract and the application of specic
limitations in insurance contracts, i.e. franchise, deductible, exclusions; and
the limited level of the capital insured.

Space tourism is becoming a reality: within a few years,

private space travel has gone from concept to near-reality.
Virgin Galactics SpaceshipTwo suborbital spacecraft is
already taking reservations from aspiring space tourists,
and hopes to start commercial ights by 20112012. Amazon
founder Jeff Bezoss own space tourism craft is on a similar
timeline. The prototype of Las Vegas hotel billionaire Robert
Bigelows space hotel, a private space station that could be
rented out to everyone from wealthy vacationers to national
space programs, has been in orbit since July 2006.
However, given current economic conditions, caution is
advisable as to the future development and success of space
tourism. A recent Sunday Times opinion qualied Space
Tourism as a USD 200,000 trip to nowhere, stressing its
lack of business case and the penalty of its exclusiveness.
Nevertheless, for all the technological marvels, challenges and risks to be mastered to make space tourism
happen, this ambitious enterprise may yet appear ineluctable if spaceight proves to be rooted in human
nature and aspirations. William Burroughs once said that
Man is an artifact designed for space travel.14
Indeed if Space tourism is probably unstoppable
according to Mr. Binnie from Virgin Galactic, it could
then be seen rather than as a mere new recreation for
wealthy action seekers, as a pioneering step possibly
announcing a major evolutional and economic shift.
Namely, the transition from an earth-centric to a space
faring society with the generalisation and facilitation of
human access to space. Like for past Humanity risk laden
attempts to venture out of its known boundaries to
explore remote and hostile yet promising grounds,
insurance would be a key enabler.

14

In Civilian Defense, 1985.