Skylab Littering Fee Paid to Aussie Shire 30 Years Later

June 27, 2009

Image: Pieces of Skylab remain in the Shire of Esperance to this day, as decoration, apparently. Credit: kleinmatt66 on Flickr.

Although this news is fairly old (positively ancient in blog-time -- a whole two months ago), it somehow passed me by. Whether that's because it wasn't widely reported or I was caught sleeping (probably the latter), I don't know. Regardless, this is certainly one for space trivia quiz night.

On July 11, 1979, the world watched as the US space station Skylab re-entered the atmosphere. Having been abandoned years earlier, the empty station finally succumbed to the Earth's atmosphere, broke up and burned. However, not all of Skylab was incinerated by the atmosphere, in fact, it made quite a mess...

Bits of spaceship were scattered over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia and the charred space stuff that landed in the Shire of Esperance didn't go unnoticed. In fact, the Shire (pop. 12,000 in 2006) decided to fine the USA for littering their territory. The hefty sum of $400 was requested from NASA... but it was never paid.

Although the littering and subsequent fine gave this little corner of Australia some worldwide fame, the Shire looked upon the situation with some humor.

"The littering fine was given by the ranger as a bit of a lark," said the senior vice president of the Esperance Bay Historical Society and Esperance shire president at the time of the Skylab crash, Merv Andre.

"NASA declined to pay it and after three months, the infringement was written off, but it hasn’t been forgotten!"

This is where Scott Barley, a DJ from the US radio station Highway Radio, steps in. On hearing the tale of Skylab and Esperance, he campaigned in his morning show to collect $400 from his listeners so he could settle NASA's debt. Sure enough, listeners from Las Vegas (Nevada) and Barstow (California) came through and collected the debt and it was sent to Australia.

What a funny little tale...

(By the way, the check has yet to be cashed.)

Special thanks to @DrLucyRogers for digging up this little gem! Source: Esperance Express