Jesse Hathaway
Latest posts by Jesse Hathaway (see all)
- Sanders’ ‘Stop BEZOS Act’ Boosts Government — Not Workers’ Prosperity - November 1, 2018
- There’s No Time Like the Present for Tax Reform 2.0 - September 19, 2018
- Fan Ownership, Not Stadium Welfare, Would Be Best For Sports Fans and Taxpayers - April 24, 2018
In this episode of the weekly Budget & Tax News podcast, managing editor Jesse Hathaway takes a leap into the Final Frontier, talking with Texas Tech University economics professor Alex Salter about how current international legal policy and basic economics are causing a potentially deadly problem in the skies: space junk.
Too large to burn up and too small to be tracked, the danger of space junk in Earth orbit is caused by the lack of an economic incentive to clean up things like inoperative satellites or spent rocket casings, and outdated and ineffective extraterrestrial property laws remove the incentive for private companies to clean up orbits.
Instead of leaving the problem for nation-states to deal with on their own, at taxpayer expense, Salter proposes “renting” the right to clean orbits of valuable recyclable ore to private companies, creating a private-public partnership (P3) that’s truly out of this world!
Space Debris: A Law and Economics Analysis of the Orbital Commons
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