Debris can be caused by defunct companies that put sats up when this all wasn't a concern.

Also, deorbiting a sat at end of life is one thing, but deorbiting debris from an accidental collision (or an intentional one, just not intended by the sat's owner!) is a completely different thing. Companies do plan for end of life sat deorbiting, but it's hard to ask them to plan for unintentional collision debris deorbiting.

Paying for debris cleanup could be a thing that new sat deployment could be required to have covered, but without first knowing the cost of debris cleanup, it's hard to charge enough. Debris cleanup has never been done, so we don't know the cost of it! Also, if the government were the escrow agent, you know the money would just be spent, so the escrow would have to be a private entity.

Lastly, a lot of debris in orbit is due to anti-sat missile testing by nation states, so you're really asking them to clean up their debris.

But ranting is more fun?

> Debris can be caused by defunct companies that put sats up when this all wasn't a concern.

I think the point is that it was always a concern. It's never not been a problem to leave your trash for someone else to clean up. A person standing in a pristine forest is still wrong to throw their trash on the ground and walk away even though it doesn't immediately turn the forest into a toxic cleanup site, and it would be hard for the litterbug to guess at the costs of paying someone to go into the forest to clean up that mess in the future.

It was never acceptable for companies to throw their junk into orbit without having a plan in place to remove it, they just did it anyway because no one was willing to force them to be responsible.

Now we've reached a point where it's time to start forcing people to be responsible for their trash, but that doesn't mean the people who have been littering and brought us to this point were not wrong to do it or that it wasn't wrong for our world's governments to allow it to happen. It was wrong. We knew better, people have been warning us about the possible dangers since at least the 80s and NORAD has been keeping track of space junk since the 1950s!

I think it's perfectly reasonable to point out that, once again, we failed to hold governments and corporations accountable for trashing the environment and now it's predictably come back to bite us collectively in the ass, yet there's not been much talk about making those directly responsible for the mess pay for what they've done and companies today are continuing to act as they always have done.

While it was always a concern, it was not a practical concern.

It would not be reasonable to require an 1970s satellite launch to be able to clear out the debris if the satellite exploded after a collision, because that's something we aren't able to do even now, 50 years later (note that the proposal is for 'thinning out', not clearing it). So obviously it was acceptable for companies to throw their junk without having a plan in to place to remove the debris after an accident - they are required to have a plan to deorbit after a normal operation, since that is actually a reasonably practical requirement.

Stating that this is unacceptable would mean that essentially no satellite launches would happen, and so the society chose to explicitly accept launches without a responsibility for clearing out the debris.

For the most part they already do what you suggest.

Companies are required to have plans for save disposal. The problem is currently if you have a total failure, you are not required to pay for removal. This could be added as a law and then it would just be part of the insurance package.

Also, most actual space junk in LEO are government sats or parts of rockets that launched government sats.

Commercial stuff is mostly in GEO and there you also have a disposal problem but its quite a different problem then LEO.

> Space companies pay a fee per launch. Amount gets pooled.

This seems to be a very bad approach. Amount of launch does not have much to do with how much debris exists.

Think of it as the equivalent of insurance. Extrapolate.

I'm just saying. Sure, current launches are not responsible, but pay to play, man. And I don't mean make launching unprofitable, but play your part.

Commercialize the clean up. I don't know, NASA drafts a contract that soace players bid for, funded by launches. I dont know, but just do it.

>An estimate is made for the total cost of clearing significant space junk.

The same bullshit as carbon credits: we make up a number, make companies pay it, and feel good about ourselves.

Actually, no. I assume major debris is tracked.

So, we can verifiably determine whether the money has done its job or not.

Or shall we do nothing?

You can do whatever you want, just don't pretend that the amount of the fine is not completely arbitrary.

I'm not pretending. And it doesn't have to be arbitrary.

Your comparing two completely different issus.