anonymous question

There is the Earth. Around the Earth is a certain near-Earth space where people regularly launch satellites. A satellite may fail on its own or disable another satellite, either as a result of targeted commands from its owners or as a result of many unpredictable natural factors.

What rules would govern the interaction of interested parties in this sphere under ancap? In essence, roughly the same as now. The legal frameworks in which property disputes regarding satellites and their mutual influence occur already largely correspond to free market principles: entities are equal and act on the basis of clearly defined agreements.

What would be the reaction now if someone began consciously shooting down other people’s satellites? The affected parties would try to prove this fact, the broader community of those potentially involved in the conflict would also be interested in such an investigation, and further, everyone would be interested in depriving the aggressor of the ability to continue the attacks, as well as recovering damages for the affected parties.

So, with the transition to ancap on Earth, little will fundamentally change in space. Except that currently, sections of the geostationary orbit are divided among states based on geographical criteria; were there no states, other agreements between players in the space industry would come into effect. Perhaps the simple principle of homesteading.

Well, alright. A considerable amount of time has passed, a huge amount of debris has accumulated in orbit—how will the market solve this problem? In general, what is trash for some is a valuable resource for others. Someone has already paid to launch mass into orbit. The temptation arises to use materials raised by someone else instead of launching one’s own. For now, this is commercially inefficient. The more debris there is in orbit, the lower the costs of extracting raw materials from space debris compared to launching.

Finally, it is worth noting that the accumulation of debris occurs only in sufficiently high orbits, while in low orbits, debris soon leaves orbit on its own and harmlessly burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Thus, for low orbits, extending the lifespan of a satellite is more relevant than the accumulation of satellites that have already become debris.

Thus, in the space industry, one can see all the approaches humanity has developed in the fight against the problem of waste: increasing the service life of products, littering less, and recycling waste.