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I can't find xboneslife's comment to reply to, so replying here > You can just put the same price on debris addition. Indeed. A small tax that matches the cos
by tomrod 4y ago
I can't find xboneslife's comment to reply to, so replying here
> You can just put the same price on debris addition.
Indeed. A small tax that matches the cost of debris capture payment + minor administrative overhead would encourage the outcome that junk isn't thrown into unrecoverable orbit.
- autoexec 4y ago> I can't find xboneslife's comment to reply to I can't even find their account https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xboneslife https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xboneslife Wonder what happened...
- LorenPechtel 4y agoThe tax wouldn't be small. I do agree, though, the only real answer is to charge for putting things in orbit and refund it to whoever deorbits the thing.
- structural 4y agoA fee per kilogram placed in orbit, refundable if the entire mass is deorbited as a single object, seems like a reasonable starting point. If that fee is the entire estimated near-term cost to recover the object, it would also create incentives for entities putting large amounts of mass in orbit to focus on improved strategies for removal: if removal becomes lower cost than the fee, it's worth paying someone to recover your debris if a satellite fails in order to recover the fee.
- freeqaz 4y agoThis would have to work across borders or else you'd create a downward force on the space industry in your nation. If the US had a tax to launch stuff, then suddenly Russia has a competitive advantage.