lawyer physics (was taxing satellites)

Jim Windle jim_windle at eudoramail.com
Tue Jul 10 21:44:24 PDT 2001


On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 16:05:44   Phillip H. Zakas wrote:
>
>
>you know one of the things i'd like to do is go into the waste removal
>business in orbit.  lots of junk up there...would like to launch a satellite
>with a long finger attached to it and poke stuff out of orbit.  the "nudge".
>who'd pay?  it would be quite an unfornate event if a satellite were
>mistaken as a piece of debris...or if debris suddenly appeared in a launch
>window ;)
>
>phillip
>
There is lots of junk up there.  Schemes to de-orbit satellites at the end of their useful life have been put forward but they always fail on the liability issue.  Apparently if a satellite falls out of orbit it is an "act of god" and the owner/insurer is not responsible for damages, but if the satellite is deliberately de-orbitted the owner/insurer is on the hook.  No one, partiucularly the insurance companies wants to try it.  This despite a high degree of confidence in being able to bring a satellite down in a hopefully empty patch of ocean.  Insurance companies are very risk averse.

Jim


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