Comment by Centigonal
2 hours ago
Hank Green did a video recently advocating for an "orbit value tax" -- like a Georgist Land Value Tax, but for orbits. This tax would, among other things, help fund orbital cleanup and internalize the externality of polluting orbital shells. It's an idea that deserves more discourse IMO.
Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjW6zuYmos
And who does the tax get paid to? Some mythical Global Government that will totally work this time?
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.
Extortion is my business
-- Ernst Blofeld
Any company removing space debris from orbit. Like a carbon capture price to offset your launch.
What you're describing is a global government, otherwise that can't be enforced.
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In low earth orbit, space debris removes itself after a few years
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The video discusses this directly.
Ugh. People already trying to find ways to gate keep space by raising the financial barrier to entry before we've even been able to capitalize on cheap space flights. I'm sure SpaceX and others will be against this until suddenly, they're not, when they realize they're one of the few that can even afford to pay it.
Like when Amazon finally had warehouses in all fifty states and suddenly quit campaigning against online sales tax.
One of the arguments Hank makes in the video is that SpaceX is (via starlink) rapidly occupying large portions of useful LEO shells, which crowds out future competitors or users of that orbit (i.e. you can't put more satellites into the orbit without risking collisions, especially satellites that aren't part of the existing constellation), and that the natural consequence of not regulating orbital space in some way would be to lock in the first movers in an orbital shell as the only organizations that have access to that orbit.
>that SpaceX is (via starlink) rapidly occupying large portions of
Which is utter bullshit. Quite painful to hear too. LEO is not your average american homeless stolen mart cart. Can we please rise to some more insighful level of discourse?
> People already trying to find ways to gate keep space by raising the financial barrier to entry before we've even been able to capitalize on cheap space flights.
Space flight is a typical "tragedy of the commons" scenario. Like radio waves (especially on HF), space orbits are a finite resource... and not just problematic for other satellites, because ground-based space observation gets more and more impeded by satellites.
I mean, presumably, the tax would apply per-spacecraft with a price adjustment for orbit lifetime and how busy a particular orbit is, so a small constellation of 5-10 short lived microsatellites wouldn't have a huge entry barrier.
Do you think Russia will be willing to pay a tax on their new Rassvet constellation?
> orbit value tax
How about No?