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Space tourism companies must prepare now for how they will handle their first loss of life, since it could potentially derail the budding industry, members of the industry say.

“No matter how much effort we put into safety, there is a chance of an accident,” says Alex Tai, chief operating officer of UK-based Virgin Galactic, which is vying to take passengers on suborbital flights. He made the comments on Wednesday at the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, US.

The loss of life is inevitable, says Kirby Ikin, managing director of Asia Pacific Aerospace Consultants in Australia. And a deadly accident could affect financing for all space tourism companies. “What happens if someone in the industry crashes and burns, it could affect everyone,” Ikin told New Scientist.

He suggests companies get business interruption insurance, since a two-year halt following a lethal accident, such as what the US space shuttle programme recently went through, could otherwise destroy a company.

But the potential for accidents could also create a cottage industry for personal injury lawyers.

The early years may be especially difficult for space tourism companies. Most losses for launch vehicles happen in the first three flights, says Ray Duffy, senior vice president for Willis Inspace, a space insurance company.

Indeed, the first flights of Space-X’s Falcon 1 and UP Aerospace’s SpaceLoft XL failed to reach space this year.

Highly flammable

Buzz Aldrin, the second human to set foot on the Moon, said he has been approached to fly on new spacecraft designed for tourists. He said he would take a pass: “I don’t need that publicity anymore and I don’t need that risk.”

At the conference, attendees expressed concern about the safety of a plan to fly rocket-powered planes in a NASCAR-style event run by the Rocket Racing League.

A computer-generated video of the planned races showed the rocket-planes making quick stops to refuel with kerosene and liquid oxygen – which is highly flammable.

“When I see pit stops with liquid oxygen, that raises concerns with me,” says Stu Witt, manager of the Mojave Spaceport in California, US. That spaceport is home to aviation pioneer Burt Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight in 2004.

Furry mammals

It is the job of spaceports to inspect the operations of their space-faring tenants, Witt said. He adds that he is obliged to handle about one mishap per month. He says the next three years will be a “prove it” phase, with companies conducting a minimum of 30 successful flights to prove the safety of their vehicles.

But even with these discussions of risk, the head cheerleader for the industry ended the symposium on an upbeat note. X Prize Foundation chairman Peter Diamandis said large corporations tend to avoid taking risks because their stock prices would plummet if there were an accident, and the US government avoids them because it is accountable to taxpayers.

“We are killing ourselves in this country by how risk-adverse we have gotten. It is destroying our ability to take on breakthroughs,” he said.

“It’s the dreamers, it’s the doers, it’s the furry mammals who are evolved, take the risks, or die,” Diamandis said to applause. “That’s what we stand for here.”