Uncontrolled entry of space debris will always be a possibility. While rocket stage or bigger object can be fitted with control mechanism to control its descent somewhat, small items will always lack the room to do so and they are expected to burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry due to small size. But the speed and entry angle might occassionally let some items actually hit the surface, which cannot be predicted nor controlled.

The problem with space is that in order to move anywhere, you have to throw away some thing to provide thrust. Lets say someone builds a shuttle that travel in space to collect the discarded objects instead of just jettison them and let them fall to the ground, that shuttle will need to carry fuels which will be ejected to provide thrust. And the shuttle will need to be refuel frequently to carry out its task. Even if you dock that shuttle to the space stations, the cost of sending up the fuels just to be burned up later are going to be expensive. It will become much cheaper if the shuttle is docked to a space elevator and the fuels needed just being sent up that way, and the discarded objects can also be sent down via the elevator. Without the space elevator, once the shuttle collect the objects they still have to either accelerate them to escape velocity so those objects can be throw towards the sun for example, or wait for the next supply run to transport those discarded objects back to Earth, all going to be very costly.


This post has been edited by vhs: Jun 23 2024, 02:11 AM

Actually insurance works on the principle of multiple entities paying a smaller amount to share a risk. There is not enough space agencies in the world to actually "share the risk" by paying premium in this manner. Easier to just budget for potential lawsuit in their budget allocation and use it when being sued. Anyway, it is only 80K. not even enough to pay one of their staff a year salary.

Apparently NASA is its own "insurance company" and by laws can also act as insurance company to provide space insurance for other 3rd parties. Although there are also other companies providing space insurance to private space ventures. NASA itself does not need it because at this point it already bear the majority of the exposures so they just need to budget for it.

https://us.milliman.com/en/insight/will-spa...-auto-insurance

There are key components to determine if a risk is insurable. They often include characteristics such as:

There must be a large number of homogeneous exposure units
The loss must be fortuitous, meaning accidental and unintentional
The loss must be definite, determinable, and measurable
The loss should not be systemic in nature such that many risks are exposed to the same event resulting in potentially catastrophic loss
The chance of loss must be calculable
The premium must be economically feasible

This post has been edited by vhs: Jun 23 2024, 01:55 AM