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Comment by mrlonglong | Hacker News Reader

Time Australia fined India for littering. NASA paid a fine when Skylab crashed in the outback years ago.

It fell in the ocean and drifted towards Australia. So, no, Australia has no grounds to fault India. Also, isn't it better to let space junk fall to the oceans then let it drift in space around Earth for decades?

Eh, Australia can fault the space agency if they want. Probably not reasonable right now. If we intend to increase space activity though, I think it would be fair to expect debris gets cleaned up. It hasn't mattered before as we just weren't that active in space, but with 40,000+ minisats expected to de-orbit continuously from now on maybe it's worth thinking about.

Minisats will likely completely burn up though.

I did not know that was a thing. Though, maybe I am uninformed but I can't think of both how and why this is a thing. First, a quick search on ISRO's wiki page it has a handful of launches every year, and assuming the chances of the rocket debris landing on a particular country is likely single digits a year if at all that is, what's the point of a fine, just to make money? or is it supposed to incentivize countries to invest into research of rocket debris trajectories? Or perhaps deter countries from launching rockets? Second, what happens when a space agency disputes an incident/fine, who is the final authority? What happens on repeat offenses, steeper fines? What if the fine is not paid? Is it a problem worth tensions between nations with sizable bilateral trade?

They issued a $400 fine as a joke, and NASA never actually paid it.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/70708/nasas-unpaid-400-l...

It’s the principal. The Skylab fine was $400.

The idea is that an organisation, no matter how large, doesn’t get to ignore the law.

Alas nasa didn’t even pay the fine, probably some form of legal reason

The ticket was not serious and the local government never followed up to collect it. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/34928/did-nasa-...

They didn't pay?

As an American I will consider paying this on behalf of NASA if someone can tell me how… $400 is worth the amusement

> In 2009, 30 years after Skylab’s reentry, California radio DJ Scott Barley asked listeners to donate money so they could finally clear NASA’s books. Though the mayor of Esperance told Barley the ticket had been “written off years ago,” he and his listeners cobbled together the $400 and sent it to the shire. For his efforts, Barley was invited to Esperance and received a key to the city.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/70708/nasas-unpaid-400-l...

> assuming the chances of the rocket debris landing on a particular country is likely single digits a year if at all that is, what's the point of a fine

It’s not likely, but debris may land on top of humans, and may be large and not only physically, but also chemically dangerous.

As to that fine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty doesn’t mention that, but does say:

“States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects”

NASA never paid the fine. On the 30th year anniversary a US radio show host organised a fund raising and got the money together to pay the $400 off on behalf of the US government.

Has India been dumping trash in Australia for a long time or something?

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