And who does the tax get paid to? Some mythical Global Government that will totally work this time?

athrowaway3z 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The Dutch figured out how to do collective dike maintenance a millennium ago without inventing mythical super government. Collective rules worked just fine.

I encourage you to reflect on this bias. I suspect you're taking the American state as a template, and extrapolating its incompetence. The history is filled with different ideas - some of them far older than America itself.

Hell, I'd call America a place so naturally rich, it's practically the case study how much dysfunction can be papered over with money instead of statecraft.

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steveBK123 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My new startup, SPECTRE.

It's a new SaaS play - Satellites As A Service. That is, your satellite gets to stay in orbit as long as you pay me.

Otherwise my satellite killer eats them.

	▲	glitchc 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Extortion is my business -- Ernst Blofeld

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LunaSea 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Any company removing space debris from orbit. Like a carbon capture price to offset your launch.

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nba456_ 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What you're describing is a global government, otherwise that can't be enforced.

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Sanzig 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not at all, it can be handled via international treaty. Frequency allocations for civilian satellites are already handled this way, a UN body (the ITU Radiocommunication bureau in Geneva) acts as a neutral party that handles satellite spectrum coordination between UN member states.

The ITU has no enforcement power, but fundamentally that doesn't really matter much, since enforcement is handled by the member states. Are there attempts by various member states to skirt around the rules or favour their own national interests? Of course, and sometimes these are successful - but nobody just outright ignores the rules, because they know it very quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons.

Administering an orbital LVT is exactly the kind of thing that could slot cleanly into an expanded ITU mandate. Where the money goes would be up for debate, but I think the cleanest solution would be ITU rebates most of it back to the government of the country that applied for the orbital slot provided that they demonstrate it's going into a space sustainability fund.

Is it perfect? No, but it's based on a rickety-but-mostly-works international model and it doesn't require global government conspiracy theories to come to fruition.

	▲	notahacker 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Also, the number of countries with practical space launch capability is very small. US / China agreement isn't trivial, but if you can get them agreeing to ITU-administered slots, getting ESA, Japan, India, NZ etc is pretty straightforward (and Russia's capacity isn't huge even if they don't want to play ball)

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NDlurker 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

US could sanction countries/corporations/people who don't comply.

	▲	sakjur an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Could the US effectively sanction BRICS these days?

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jqbd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

US can enforce US satellites, no?

	▲	swiftcoder 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Provided they are launched in the US, on a US-owned carrier? Most likely Can't necessarily stop a multinational firing things to space on Russian/Chinese/ESA launch vehicles
	▲	rvnx 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Maybe but if so, it would mean that US spontaneously would go against one of their main strategic interests for the planet ? Doesn't makes too much sense. It's like this bicycle meme where the person puts a stick in its wheels. It's for the same reason that petrol cars are encouraged in the US. Punishing SpaceX will lead to a bigger financial crisis, an upset Elon Musk who might refuse to fund the next democratic election and dozens of thousands of lost jobs (fortunately they already became millionaire, riding the right rocket) for a problem that most of the rich population doesn't care about. Because in the city, it's about your petrol car, big trucks, and nobody to see the stars and a bit more pollution doesn't change much at that scale from their eyes. CFCs (these gazes destroying ozone) were a notable exception, because it would lead to death of everyone (the same way that petrol with lead), except death, universally there was no advantage to defend. But a space filled with US satellites is a great advantage for the US, since they are the only ones with the capabilities to deploy thousands of them, and it's a big business for military intelligence. I can imagine the main reason they are going to regulate, is so that older satellite debris don't destroy the new shiny satellites, but beauty of the sky is going to be the very least important factor.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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pantalaimon an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

In low earth orbit, space debris removes itself after a few years

	▲	Sanzig an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Eh... no, not really. At low altitudes (<500 km), sure, but much above 600 km you are starting to look at decades for a passive deorbit depending on solar cycle and ballistic coefficient.

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mukbangpervert 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The video discusses this directly.