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NASA Space

NASA Faces First-Ever Claim for Space Debris Damage 67

A Florida homeowner has filed an unprecedented claim against NASA for damages caused by space debris that crashed through his roof in March. Alejandro Otero is seeking over $80,000 for property damage and other costs after a 1.6-pound metal object from the International Space Station struck his Naples home. NASA confirmed the debris was part of a battery pack jettisoned in 2021. Legal experts, cited by ArsTechnica in the linked story, say the agency's response could set a precedent for future cases involving space debris damage.
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NASA Faces First-Ever Claim for Space Debris Damage

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  • list the object on ebay start price $85,000.
    the added $5000 should cover fees

    • $85,000 is not even a rounding error for the federal government when it comes to E-anything: "$7.5 billion... more than two years after the program was signed into law in late 2021, only eight chargers have been put in place" https://www.autoweek.com/news/... [autoweek.com] (May 27, 2024) so the homeowner should up his game.
    • That could wind up costing you a lot more. Legally, space debris that falls to earth remains the property of the original owner.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

      • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @03:02PM (#64567767) Homepage Journal

        I wonder if this will end up working like maritime law.

        In maritime law there is a distinction between flotsam -- goods which are accidentally released from a ship due to mishap like sinking -- and jetsam -- goods which are intentionally jettisoned, e.g. to save the ship that's takingon water from sinking. When someone else salvages flotsam the original owner has a claim to it. Failure to report salvage of flotsam can get you prosecuted for "theft by finding". But in the case of jetsam, the debris is considered abandoned property and it's finder's keepers.

        So space debris that was intentionally deorbited with the intention for it to burn up or fall into the ocean and never be recovered would be analogous to jetsam. Space debris caused by accidents like a loss of control or failure to reach orbit would be more like flotsam.

        It seems to me you can't have it both ways. If you want to claim the debris as your own property, then you should be responsible for the damage that property caused by your actions. If you want to claim that the damage occured after you abandoned the property, you shouldn't be able to claim it as property. Of course if the debris is government property, any claims are likely to be foreclosed by sovereign immunity.

        • Your analysis seems right, but I'm personally not going to test that distinction, if I happen to find some space debris!

  • Be smart and pay the guys roofing bill ASAP. Bored journalists will drop story as mundane.
    • Seems like a no-brainer.

      Now, when it happens to kill somebody, managing de-orbits is going to get a lot more complicated. Especially if it's an international incident as it is likely to be.

      • US residents are authorized under FTCA to breach sovereign immunity to pursue torts against the federal government; the act itself bars actions emanating from foreign locations. So while this guy could sue, if you were elsewhere, sovereign immunity would bar it, and it would be a diplomatic issue.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Now, when it happens to kill somebody, managing de-orbits is going to get a lot more complicated. Especially if it's an international incident as it is likely to be.

        On the plus side, if it's a toilet seat, they'll make a documentary [wikipedia.org] about it.

    • Exactly. You can either pay it now, or pay it later plus legal fees and such.

      You guys made the decision to jettison this thing, thinking it would burn up on re-entry to an insignificant cloud of high-energy plasma and freed atoms. It did not. Therefore you are liable.

      The only thing that makes any of this novel is that it happened above the Karman line, and the low probability.

    • Exactly. If they try to create a precedent that it's not their fault, it won't go well.

    • Pretty much my thought.
      1. Fix the guy's house (pay for the repairs)
      2. Send somebody fairly important to render a personal apology.
      3. Make a vague statement about "examining processes, amending procedures" to help avoid the problem of space junk landing on people's houses, uncomfortably close to relatives. DO NOT make a joke about better aim around mother in laws.

      At ~$80k, it's literally cheaper to just write the check now.

      • 1. Fix the guy's house (pay for the repairs)

        The damage to the roof was negligible.

        Most of the $80k is for "emotional and mental anguish".

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          What do you want to bet that the guy's brother-in-law is a lawyer and is handling the case?

        • Don't underestimate the cost of having to fix a big hole in a roof. Also if he owns a business and has to close it for tending the repair it adds up. And I can imagine them not feeling safe in their house again for a while, but that's the emotional damage and that is negligible. To be honest, $80k is even a lowball number for americans to sue over.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      That should be covered under his homeowner's insurance. He's just trying to soak the government for some extra money. He probably has a relative who's an attorney who said, "I bet we can make some money on this."

      • Except it isn't covered by his home owner insurance. Maybe you should check your insurance as a lot of stuff like this isn't covered by the insurance as it was not caused by storm or something like that. Just like when a tree from you neighbour crashes into your home, YOUR insurance isn't going to cover it.
        • Whats the difference between someone driving by his house and throwing a brick that goes through his roof, and someone throwing trash away in space and it going through his roof? Seems like his insurance should have covered it and leave it to them to recoup their costs vs NASA.

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Actually my homeowner's insurance would end up paying unless negligence on the part of the neighbor was proved (tree was clearly dead, rotten, leaning), and they would only bother trying to prove negligence if the amount was large enough that it was worth paying the lawyers. In the case of your average Florida home they'd have to destroy the entire roof and probably do some structural damage.

  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @11:56AM (#64567199)

    If NASA dropped something on his house from a crane or a plane then NASA would be liable. This does not change when the height goes way up, NASA still dropped something on his house, intentional or not.

  • by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday June 21, 2024 @01:36PM (#64567563) Homepage
    If NASA had a collective brain, they would have already fixed his house, and handed him a few $thousand for his troubles. After identifying the object, there is zero reason to let this dag out. Needless bad publicity.
    • Its a government agency. Brains are contraindicated. Honestly they're probably just letting the lawyers handle it because what the heck else do you have them for?
    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Assuming the object belonged to NASA in the first place.
      The ISS is a collaboration between several countries, and a US citizen stands pretty much no chance of getting any compensation from Roscosmos.

      • a US citizen stands pretty much no chance of getting any compensation from Roscosmos.

        Not true. The Space Liability Convention [wikipedia.org] was signed by all spacefaring countries more than 50 years ago.

        If Roscosmos had caused the damage, payment would have been assured.

        Likewise, if NASA debris hit a house in Russia.

        The problem in this case is that American debris hit an American house, and there isn't any law or precedent to handle that.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      His homeowner's insurance should cover the roof damage, this bozo is just trying to soak the government for whatever else he can get. They're probably asking for $80,000 because the lawyer figured they'll pay that without quibbling. Even if they didn't have insurance an entire new roof would cost less than $20,000 here in Washington and a lot less than that in Florida.

      • Why do you think his homeowner insurance will cover that? You are mistaken if you think anything is covered by your homeowner insurance. This wasn't caused by storm or something like that.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      If NASA had a collective brain, they would have already fixed his house, and handed him a few $thousand for his troubles. After identifying the object, there is zero reason to let this dag out. Needless bad publicity.

      The problem is, they tried. They have a claims form that was filled out. The problem is, the damage is in excess of what the claims form allows (around $25,000, they're claiming $80K in damages).

      Thus the claim needs to go higher up in the chain to approve - i.e., the Attorney General has to app

  • Remember Kosmos 954 [wikipedia.org] ?
    The then-Soviet Union paid several million Canadian dollars in compensation and costs for cleaning up most of the radioactive debris from the satellite's nuclear reactor.
    There are also terms in the international Outer Space Treaty to cover such damaging events. The treaty might still be in effect.
  • You do your best to build something which can survive re-entry and it delaminates, melts or vaporises, throw a battery casually into the atmosphere and the stupid thing sails through all the plasma and hypersonic atmospheric forces intact enough to aim for some dude's roof and wreck it

  • Does the homeowner have any evidences of these damages? Was there one debri or many debris?

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