SPACE junk has so far evaded even the most imaginative of tax collectors. But fining offenders could slash orbital debris.
The hazard posed by debris was shown on 10 February, when a defunct Russian satellite destroyed a US communications satellite.
Such collisions can be avoided if nations dispose of satellites safely, either by parking them in 鈥済raveyard鈥� orbits or burning them up in Earth鈥檚 atmosphere. But take-up of these methods is far from universal.
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鈥淪pace tidiness could be improved by fining those that do not dispose of satellites safely鈥�
An international framework to fine countries that fail to do this would encourage tidier habits, suggest Andrew Bradley and Lawrence Wein of Stanford University in California (Advances in Space Research, ). Any money collected could go into a fund to compensate owners of satellites damaged by debris, or be used to research cheaper ways to de-orbit satellites, they say.
鈥淥n the surface, it鈥檚 a very appealing idea, but the devil鈥檚 in working out the details,鈥� says Henry Hertzfeld of George Washington University in Washington DC.
