Quote from: kevin-rf on 08/07/2013 02:49 pmInsurance for NASA would be building and running two missions for each unique mission. In an era of tight budgets, that is a luxury. The extra cost would also reduce the number of unique missions that NASA can run.Building two of each mission is a *very* expensive method of insurance if only a small percentage fail. Except for planetary missions with non-recurring launch windows (outer planet missions come to mind), it's much cheaper to take out insurance that pays money if the probe fails, then build a new one with the money.
Insurance for NASA would be building and running two missions for each unique mission. In an era of tight budgets, that is a luxury. The extra cost would also reduce the number of unique missions that NASA can run.
Another approach would be for NASA to develop a series of standard buses for each launch vehicle class, so in the event of launch failure, a replacement satellite could be produced more quickly.However, the problem is that "standard buses" become obsolete before the next launch failure.Some "standardized buses" have been useful, such as the French Proteus, and in the commercial realm, but not so much for NASA.
Another approach would be for NASA to develop a series of standard buses for each launch vehicle class, so in the event of launch failure, a replacement satellite could be produced more quickly.
Cubesats may use a small bus because people will not have the time to develop an entire satellite.
... But it is still a large amount of re-engineering for each mission. The latest series of Mars landers (not rovers) come to mind, along with StartDust / Genesis. ...
If I ran NASA I would require any launch service provider to include insurance (self or otherwise) for the launch and payload. Simultaneously I would eliminate most of the insight/oversight bureaucracy. Let the launch services provider ensure reliability however they want and compensate NASA if they fail to do so.
The insurance industry would never sign up for this. There actually isn't enough reinsurance available on the market for anything over ~$700M. This has been well-researched, and the market is well-understood. Launch providers would never sign up to that level of financial risk. Congresscritters would have a field day grilling the NASA/DoD executives who made this decision.
Basically I accept that it would not be economical to have any party except Uncle Sam insure JWST but for more ordinary satellites like MAVEN I'm not convinced that having the launch provider responsible for insurance is unworkable.
I'm very dubious about your implication...