A different story [0] where an oil tanker rescued a NASA cargo ship at sea. After the rescue, years long legal battle where the company tried to collect $5 million. As I recall, NASA lacked the authority to cut that size of check and the overseeing body fought to deny payment.

  Skip faced a difficult decision. A fully loaded, 688-foot oil tanker is hardly anyone's first choice of a rescue vessel. It is as maneuverable as a school bus on ice. And the Cherry Valley was carrying ten million gallons of heavy fuel oil. A rescue attempt would put them in dangerously shallow water. One wrong move, and they would have an ecological disaster on the order of the Exxon Valdez.
  … At the center of it all, an impossible question: How do you put a price tag on doing the right thing?

[0] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1197956698/planet-money-draft...

$70k for the law firm and $10k to fix the damages.

It feels like the smallest amount you can sue a government agency for and come away with anything, really. Very reasonable for having something smash through your house that could have killed you/your family.

If I remember this correctly, NASA is allowed to settle only very tiny damage claims on their own. Above a few thousand dollars they are required to defer to the Attorney General, whose office settles the larger claims against federal agencies.

They're attempting to set a legal precedent, per the piece.

> Worthy noted the case seeks to set precedent for space debris claims in the private and public sector.

It feels like a reasonable amount, which somehow struck me as funny/unexpected in our time.