The Fall of Skylab 30 Years Later: A NASA Litter Bill in Australia Has Been Paid

Back in February of 2008, it was the threat of one of America's aging satellites falling back to Earth then that prompted me to also look back to July 12, 1979 when Skylab alerted the whole world to ponder whether their house would be its landing site. If you were a kid in 1979 as I was, the chances were good your imagination ran wild and pictured the falling Skylab satellite landing not necessarily on the roof of your house (unless you lived in a cartoon violence universe), but in your family's backyard so you could go down in history as the official landing place. As with most falling space debris, though, Skylab ultimately broke up over another continent, namely Australia. And it wasn't over an unpopulated area either.

In Esperance, Australia, a charming community exists that still feels haunted by the raining space debris of the time based on a few comments I received from residents who've lived in the town their whole life.

Through that 2008 article, I noted how when Skylab broke up over Esperance and rained debris everywhere, the townspeople of the Australian town decided that the debris disrupted the community so much, a litter fee should be imposed on NASA. You can't blame them when Esperance was and still is noted for its environmental purity. Having fragments of a satellite lying in their streets, on roofs and every other nook and cranny of the town, it's a wonder they didn't throw NASA a litter fee for much larger than it was. Ultimately, it came to only $400 in American currency.

Because NASA claimed they did everything possible to land Skylab in the ocean, they didn't show any responsibility and ended up ignoring the litter fee. For thirty years, NASA refused to pay it despite Esperance initially writing it off after three months. Then I received an interesting email just before the 4^th of July this year and a couple of weeks before the 30^th anniversary of the Skylab incident. It was from a radio personality in California by the name of Scott Barley who had apparently read my article from '08 noting the ignored litter fee. He didn't say for sure if he learned about it first through my article. The story has been here and there for years, if mostly forgotten recently. Regardless, Barley's show through CA's Highway Radio (KHWY) put out a call to his listeners to contribute money so the NASA litter fee could finally be paid and nullified.

No, this wasn't a shock jock practical joke. To show how loyal audiences to radio shows will always be when told to do something positive, all of Barley's listeners sent in money to cover the $400. All of this happened during a time when California is going broke and when citizens there are struggling themselves financially. But it all seemed to happen by clockwork, just in time for the 30^th anniversary of Skylab falling on Esperance.

The town itself in Australia was already planning a ceremony to reflect the anniversary of the Skylab event. Now Barley's story has crossed the pond to Australia where residents of Esperance invited him to come speak on July 12 and present the check that will officially pay off the litter fee.
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Of course, relations between Australia and America haven't been all that frosty since Skylab fell there. Nevertheless, residents of Esperance have always held a grudge against NASA's hubris in not paying the litter bill. You can't help but picture a better look at America when billboards in Esperance, noting the unpaid litter bill for the last thirty years, now have a new design of a "paid in full" red stamp. It's big news, even though the mainstream media news probably won't cover much about it as the death of Michael Jackson and other issues take precedence in the media as of this writing.

As I expounded on in my original article on the subject in early '08, it's a scenario that another country may have to deal with again as America's satellites start to age and risk the potential of falling back to earth. The satellite that fell in 2008 fortunately broke up over the Pacific Ocean after initially being told it could land on American soil. What happens if another one of our satellites breaks apart over a populated city or town outside the borders of America again? Most of us would wish the paying of the Skylab litter fee through private donations would get back to NASA so they'd make sure to take care of any litter fees in the future.

Yet it's unfortunate we'll likely see the same thing happen again due to America not taking responsibility for the errant directions any of our space junk takes when landing back on terra firma. It's an arguable case and one that could easily be argued in an international court if it ever came to that. The trouble is that most other countries wouldn't be brave enough to stick America with a litter fee, unless it was North Korea or Iran. Esperance, Australia had some guts in dealing with the behemoth and ultimately winning thirty years later through taxpaying, American citizens.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't think about a converse situation that could prove to be just as problematic: A piece of space junk from another country crashing on American soil. If such a thing happened, would we ask the particular country to pay for the cleanup? The easy answer might be that the country (depending on our relations with them) would voluntarily offer to pay to clean up the mess. The more complicated answer is that perhaps all space programs around the world are going to proclaim that they're above responsibility for space junk that happens to land on any soil.

There's little that can be done to change that philosophy when governments around the world support space agencies in the bigger picture of space and planet discovery. When the populace is willing to pick up the tab, however, it probably does better for international relations than two government agencies from two respective nations butting heads.

Link to my February, 2008 article about the Australian litter fee imposed on NASA:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/567641/satellites_falling_skylab_costs_america.html?cat=16

An article from April in the AU press about Scott Barley raising the $400:

http://www.esperanceexpress.com.au/news/local/news/general/littering-fine-paid/1488319.aspx?storypage=1