Photo: A large piece of space trash being released from the International Space Station. NASA photo.
I jumped out of bed this morning, suddenly remembering that today is Tuesday and I’d forgotten to roll out the trash can. I grabbed a plastic bag full of garbage from under the kitchen sink, ran outside and tossed the bag into the can, and got the can out to the curb just as the garbage truck was turning the corner onto my street.
I’m proud to report that I successfully handled my garbage without threatening anyone’s life or property. Nor did anyone threaten to sue me.
Apparently, NASA cannot make the same kind of claims.
Late last month, NASA confirmed that “an object” that smashed through the roof of a Florida house last April was part of “debris” released from the International Space Station.
From a June 23 article by reporter Rachel Pannett in The Washington Post:
No one was hurt, but a lawyer for the Florida family said the near miss could have been catastrophic.
How NASA responds could set a legal precedent, the lawyer said.
The Otero family is seeking “in excess of $80,000” in its claim against NASA.
I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand the term “legal precedent”, it implies that the same thing is likely to happen again.
In this case, the “debris” was a 1.6-pound chunk of metal from a 5,800-pound cargo pallet carrying old nickel hydride batteries, released from the International Space Station in March 2021. The space junk had been “expected to burn up upon reentering the Earth’s atmosphere”, but somehow survived.
With unfortunate consequences.
I’m not allowed to include old nickel hydride batteries in my trash. It’s against the law. So I’m not clear what NASA was thinking when they tossed a 5,800-pound cargo pallet into space, knowing it was destined to fall to earth.
With a chunk crashing through someone’s roof?
This object looks suspiciously like the corroded battery I pulled out of my old flashlight last year.
The scary part of this whole story (which was not included in Ms. Pannett’s article) is the amount of space garbage currently circling over our heads. It’s not just NASA throwing out old batteries; there are a half dozen countries and a whole bunch of private corporations putting stuff into orbit, without any requirement that they ensure our safety. Derelict spacecraft — nonfunctional spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages — plus mission-related debris, and particularly-numerous fragmentation debris from the breakup of derelict rocket bodies and spacecraft.
As of November 2022, the US Space Surveillance Network reported 25,857 artificial objects in orbit, including 5,465 operational satellites. However, these are just the objects “large enough to be tracked”.
Large enough, presumably, to put a hole in your roof.
One weird aspect to this story: if the Otero family had lived in a foreign country, NASA would be required to pay for the damage to their roof (and for the anxiety the family must be feeling) according to the United States Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects — also known as the Space Liability Convention.
“If the incident had happened overseas, and someone in another country were damaged by the same space debris as in the Oteros’ case, the U.S. would have been absolutely liable to pay for those damages,” said the lawyer for the Otero family. “We have asked NASA not to apply a different standard towards U.S. citizens or residents, but instead to take care of the Oteros and make them whole.”
I bet the Oteros wish Florida were a foreign country, so they wouldn’t have to hire a lawyer just to get their roof fixed.