In an article on its web site posted Thursday, famed insurer Lloyd’s of London looks at the potential business of insuring commercial human spaceflight. “Lloyd’s brokers and underwriters say there is capacity in the market to provide insurance cover for the commercial flights if underwriters are convinced about their level of exposure to passenger liabilities,” the article states, summarizing the developments by Virgin Galactic and then talking with a number of people in the insurance business, particularly in the small but established niche of space insurance.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of questions about the level of risk and, thus, the availability of coverage and the rates for such insurance. “[A]t present until the design and construction of the craft itself is finalized then insurers will not be in a position to give any rating to the risk,” said Roger Bathurst, CEO of International Space Brokers. He adds that, if such insurance is provided, “the risk will be extremely specialist and the Lloyd’s market would be viewed as a natural home for what may be the final frontier for aviation risk.”

One area of concern for insurers is that the target market for suborbital spaceflights will be people of high net worth, creating a high degree of exposure for insurers in the event of an accident. “An aircraft which would be regularly full of very high net worth passenger would cause some concern for underwriters in terms of their exposure should any accident occur,” said Chris Gibbs, a space underwriter for Brit Insurance. That’s no surprise for people in the industry who have raised concerns about the availability and cost of insurance for commercial human spaceflight. As Pat Bahn of TGV Rockets has said on a number of occasions, “Amateurs talk propellants, professionals talk insurance.”

AFP reported yesterday that Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov suggested the end was near for tourist flights to the ISS on regular Soyuz taxi flights there. According to Perminov, the planned increase in the ISS crew size from three to six—expected by the end of the decade, when ISS assembly is complete—will leave no room on Soyuz taxi flights to the station for tourists. “I’m afraid that from 2009, tourism as we see it today may be discontinued,” Perminov said, according to the report.

Perminov did indicate that there is strong demand for such flights, enough that “we cannot satisfy all requests”. However, the article doesn’t address the possibility that additional Soyuz spacecraft could be manufactured, perhaps for dedicated tourist flights to the ISS (not to mention plans for circumlunar tourist flights). Space Adventures has reportedly been looking at what’s needed to increase the Soyuz production rate, so this report may be a little premature.

A follow-up to our earlier coverage of the re-launch of Space Access LLC: A Corpus Christi, Texas TV station reports that the company’s plans include an “an economically-friendly community on roughly 25,000 acres of land” on Kenedy Ranch south of the city. That development is said to be similar to Celebration, Florida, the Disney planned community near Orlando. The article doesn’t indicate why the company wants to undertake a major real estate development on top of a suborbital vehicle project—the vehicle project alone would appear to be challenging enough for a startup company.