[ericb]

I think the smart move is to put a regulatory requirement to either fund removal via a satellite tax, prepayment, or require a 1-up-1-down trade. Selling a satellite cleanup credit like companies do with carbon or EV credits could work.

[f6v]

The problem is space doesn’t belong to anyone in particular. Who’s going to enforce it? I suppose the UN could, but, unfortunately, it’s completely powerless.

[tpierceturion]

Good point. It's a lot like international waters at this point but there is a very interesting aspect regarding this. Currently the FCC is the primary governing body in the space realm and requires all international satellites to abide by their rules in order to access the US telecommunications market. This translated to ~90% of all satellites following their rules due to monetary incentives.

[ceejayoz]

"Join in, or the debris we take down might be your satellite."

[MichaelZuo]

There are actually binding, UN treaties actually on outer space, one specifically on outer space debris.

The liability for any debris that hits something else in space, or hits something on Earth, lies with the launching nation of said debris. This has already occurred and been resolved once, when a USSR spy satellite hit northern Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

I imagine if an incident were to occur and the launching nation didn’t compensate the UN security council could ultimately enforce some kind of punishment. If one of the permanent five refused, since all five are satellite launching nations, or closely tied (UK) to a satellite launching nation, there will be immense pressure to settle up.

[ramesh31]

>The problem is space doesn’t belong to anyone in particular. Who’s going to enforce it? I suppose the UN could, but, unfortunately, it’s completely powerless.

Countries can just tax them at launch time based on the payload

[BurningFrog]

The UN is also mostly rather useless...

One model is that certain orbits do become owned by some major power or private company.

When you own certain orbits, it's your responsibility to keep them clean.