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NASA's Skylab $400 Littering Fine Paid By DJ
astroengine writes "Space Disco speaks with a Californian radio DJ about his role in raising, and paying, NASA's 30-year old littering fine levied by a Western Australian town. Skylab parts fell on Esperance in 1979, but the space agency's refusal to pay $400 has resulted in an entertaining annual grudge. Now the Barstow radio DJ is guest of honor at this weekend's 30th anniversary celebrations in Oz and the two small towns at opposite ends of the Pacific will be twinned... all because Skylab had a messy re-entry..."
If you don't want America's garbage raining down on you, you are going to have to defeat us on the field of battle.
What's that? You haven't printed trillions of dollars to build up an absurdly capable military?
I suggest you grab a helmet and dig yourself a bunker, mate.
This story reads like a Simpsons' episode.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
NASA needs DJs to raise $400 for a littering fine applied 30 years ago.
I have been to Barstow, a hot hot hot overgrown truck stop in the middle of California's central valley.
This genius found a way to escape to australia for a bit, kudos to him.
music lover since 1969
Do they also give fines for littering to people who wreck their cars and leave debris on the side of the road? I don't mean the whole car, but stuff like smashed headlights and windows.
"The Y chromosome is genetic. The odds are very good that if you are male then your father was too." -Internet Commenter
If they think that Skylab was bad, just wait until NASA crashes the ISS into the middle of Sydney!
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Just wait till they DeOrbit ISS in 2016. I think I know where the "miscalculated" orbit might end up.
I expect the headline "Small New Zealand town vaporized as a result of Kilometer-Mile error made computing the ISS re-entry trajectory."
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Being from Fresno, CA, I completely agree. Also, Barstow isn't in the central valley. Central valley ends out near Bakersfield, and Barstow is a bit more southeast from there towards Vegas.
What about the accrued interest on the fine? I also wonder, if they had not dropped the fine, could there have been some sort of arrest warrant, and who would've been the one to arrest?
I had to comment, just because it's pretty damn rare for my hometown to get a mention anywhere, let along on Slashdot :P
This was a pretty big event at the time - Nasa had a team of people on the ground and were aksing for bits of debris to be bought in for analysis. My mother took a few pieces in and forgot about it, several months later they sent them back mounted on a nice wall plaque identifying which part of the space station it was from :)
Gotta love government bureaucracy. I guarantee you it was supposed to be approved by some middle manager who left/got transferred before getting around to doing it - and no one ever bothered to check after that.
Aren't Bakersfield and Barstow known as the armpits of California?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
the number of posters to this story who don't realize that the fine was a joke.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Pretty sure Fresno's on that list, too. All hellholes.
Foreign governments don't pay their parking tics in NYC or Washington either mainly because they don't have to. Diplomatic immunity bars local gov from messing with them. Also It would be interesting to send a FOIA request to NASA to see if the town ever went through proper diplomatic channels to make a claim against the US gov.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
I bet the town could have sold the Skylab debris for more than $400.
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I prefer to think of them as a little taste of West Virginia three hours from the coast.
That's pretty good budget management when you get someone else to pay.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Also It would be interesting to send a FOIA request to NASA to see if the town ever went through proper diplomatic channels to make a claim against the US gov.
I don't seem to remember Skylab spending any time in Australian customs and excise, or being reviewed by an inspector, before entering Australian territory, either.
Your post is silly.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So I started to read the article and immediately thought "oh yeah, I remember when that came down". Then I read the part about the 30yr Anniversary. Damn I am getting old.
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In space, no one can hear you sue.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
"two small towns at opposite ends of the Pacific"? Esperance is 3000+km from the Pacific.
How much money has that town made off of that particular bit of random fame?
I'll bet it is a helluva lot more than the fine.
(How much did they spend on pursuing the claim... *g*)
Humans are, for the most part, fucking idiots.
(I have karma to burn, so go ahead and mod me down if you feel you have to. Ask me if I care, fools.)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
What? Did you forget about duck and cover? There are so many fall out shelters sitting around designed to handle a nuclear strike just miles away they they have been re purposed as stores and hotels and crap. I have two of them on my property that was capable of handling 80 people each ran by the civil air patrol. One is used as a farrowing house now and the other is just sitting there.
Almost every city has them. A lot of the cities even require a few to remain the way they were. You might look around and see a yellow triangle that says fall out shelter on it marking the entrance way to one inside of stores, government buildings and so on. When I was in school, we had one in the basement of the school large enough to pack the entire school in there for 2 weeks at a time without outside assistant. In our duck and cover instructions, we were given maps of the city with all the fallout shelter locations on them and even had pop quizzes over them.
Of course I live within 200 miles of 3 air force bases (one decommissioned) and an army base so we might have had a few more precautions. But you can about guarantee that are quite a few bunkers around in America. Besides, ever county in every state has a national guard armory that will have weapons (if you follow their orders) and bunkers larger enough to take civilians in. Maybe not all of them, but it isn't like a full scale war will last long in the US either. The second amendment and the structure of the US constitution made sure of that.
if i had read the fine print, i'd certainly have paid the $400. hell i could recoup the cost by ebaying just one chunk of that thing. theres 300 million people in amreica, millions of whom would pay a good chunk of coin to own a piece of a space station. one mans trash...
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
I hope there wasn't any fresh fruit left on Skylab by the last crew. If so there is going to be trouble.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So he goes to Western Australia, a hot hot hot overgrown truck (road train) stop on the edge of Australia.
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
The second amendment ... made sure of that.
If we can keep it.
Being a foreigner, I have no clue where Barstow is exactly, but 'somewhere near Barstow' is on the edge of the desert. Definitely. And it's full of bats.
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
They probably did, but local councils like to maximise their revenue opportunities.
Read this as an example. The fine was a joke. Jimmy Carter called the local roadhouse to apologise. They probably had the whole population of Balladonia around the phone.
USA hasn't been in a war since the civil war.
You lie! I distinctly remember the Soviets invading back in the 80's. And it didn't even take our army to defeat them, just Patrick Swayze and a plucky bunch of teenagers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.