Ships have been able to disappear without a trace for the entirety of human history, right up to the present (MH 370). Yet people still join the various navies and merchant marines, and fly aboard aircraft. There's such a thing as an acceptable level of risk. During wartime, that tends to get much higher, if your population is either patriotic or fighting to defend their own homes.

On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

The civilian ships got insurance-enforced standards first.
If there is enough money behind it, someone will find a solution sometime between TL10 & 15. ;
Warships do not get insurance, but they affect bonds. They certainly affect budgets, and construction schedules, and operating commitments.

And, if ships could disappear with no hope of even tracking never mind rescue, how many would join the service?!

Greg

On 15/02/2016 11:49 AM, "Richard Aiken" <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 2:54 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

I do not accept the possibility of TL15 or even 11 of loosing spaceships, at least so completely, if only because no one would insure vessels.


Insurance companies get out of paying off in most such situations through the use of that little phrase weasel phrase "act of war" in standard policy contracts. E.g. if one's ship is lost due to the results of a military decision (your side, their side, somebody else's side, it doesn't matter) the insurance doesn't pay out. Turning off or disabling an emergency transponder because it might put you in increased danger of detection by the enemy is such an "act of war." An insurance policy that *would* pay out for a loss resulting from such a decision would be a LOT more expensive, IF you could find someone to underwrite it at all. But that's not really a concern, since most governments are self-insured anyway.

--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)
"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester
"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.
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