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Published online 2 August 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news070730-8
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Pay your money, take your chance
Fatalities are an inevitable part of human spaceflight, and space tourism companies will have to face up to it, says Philip Ball.
The tragic deaths of three workers in an explosion at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California should not be seen as the first fatalities of commercial spaceflight. The accident occurred during a test on a rocket-propulsion system for a private spacecraft, but this was an industrial accident, not a failure of aerospace engineering.
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