mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Um, wouldn't a natural way to assess property taxes be to first decide in which jurisdiction the property rests?
No Virginia, "The Man who Sold the Moon" was not written by David Bowie.
For instance project the boundary of jurisdictions into space from the geometrical center of the earth. In which case it would probably be Brazil that should be collecting the taxes and Hughes would be writing off the taxes as a cost thereby reducing the taxes collected in California. Look for the locations over international waters to get crowded.
Hey, you almost make me feel like Tim May! Get with the program. Use those search engines. Everyone should read the works of Robert Heinlein. Not to mention half a dozen old sf hacks from the 1940s to the 1960s. If they had, they might not have an answer to the problem "who should tax a satellite", never mind the even harder problem "how do I stop my satellite being taxed", but they would at least have *thought* about it. And why the the Brazil option probably wouldn't work. Or has my gross British sense of humour failed to detect your subtle American sense of irony? Of course, as someone else pointed out in the parallel thread, the diplomats thought of it as well, and limited airspace to a hundred somethings (can't remember what. Kilometres I assume. If it was miles some eccentric-orbit spy satellites might get into the airspace. Though it is hard to imagine the CIA paying their Iraqi taxbill for reconnaissance overflights). In general sf is of no help in predicting the future. But it sometimes means that when the future comes the questions we have to answer don't take us quite as much by surprise as they do some of our neighbours. Even if we don't always agree on the answers. Anyway it is fun, so hie thee to the nearest bookshop and get into the backstory. Ken Brown