Hmm... actual question: for pure science exploration missions, does insure probes against failure given investment in *ground* assets.
For example, if Juno failed suddenly, all terrestrial Juno-specific resources would be a deadweight loss.
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Hmm... I think early Spanish explorers probably just claimed everything for the Spanish crown. There was no real counterparty there.
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Doesn't have to be *in* the new world. Just needs a completed loop. Like earth economics is used to rent transponders on satellites.
Need 2 parties in a contract about an asset in space, but the parties don't need to be in space where the asset is.
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I think all the Americas corps were basic royal charter companies. The Asian ones otoh had to deal with local states via trade. In Americas, only very limited trade with natives, mostly outright appropriation.
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Yeah this stuff is very unclear. China will probably test it first on the Moon. On Earth, Antartica is a good test case.
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Actually no. I don't think there's a whole lot of new commercial exploitation of space beyond existing LEO/GEO stuff. I'm thinking of these as edge cases to help work out principles of regular economics. See tweets earlier in evening on postcapitalism/blockchains tuff
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How much incremental land based investment is there? Launch infrastructure is common, signals and data management is common. What is a capital cost that stays on the ground?
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probably software used to analyze the specific sensor data? human capital?
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I’m pretty certain NASA self-insures against all risks. Perfectly priced insurance would cost the same as self-insurance in the long run, but in reality insurance co. has overhead and profit. Plus US gov has deep enough pockets to not need help smoothing out failure costs.



