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Comment by UseStrict | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes, the true day-to-day life we all experience launching multi-million dollar satellites by a multi-billion dollar company, endangering the safe launch and operation of other satellites not just domestic but globally.

If they couldn't be bothered to put enough fuel in the cannister to deorbit, they get fined. I don't see why that requires a full trial.

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I just find it strange that in this and the other story, everyone is saying that the initial fine should have been larger.

Is the theory that the company is going to ignore this? That seems implausible; I'm guessing that they're scrambling to avoid further problems and make sure the relationship with their regulator is good. From the regulator's perspetive, what benefit would it do to actually put them out of business, or to seriously wound them, or scare them more? Or, are we trying to establish a precedent that "you may be seriously damaged even upon first infraction"? Is that the behavior we want companies to anticipate - that the government will attack super hard upon first infraction? If that's what we want, okay. But to me that seems too strong, since there are tons of laws and rules with arbitrary enforcement; given that it makes sense that when agencies get involved, they initially fire warning shots like this so companies know someone is paying attention. Then in a month, if the company hasn't taken serious steps to solve this, the regulators can start nuking companies who don't comply. I'm definitely pro regulation, but there's a trade-off because companies need to know the rules so they can plan, budget, consult, etc. so having this initial trigger that working to figure out what is allowed/forbidden/etc is good. Companies pre-emptively being extremely scared will have huge costs (money/environmental/speed), too, especially when it's for things which don't matter or which agencies don't actually care about.

I think its a combination of pitiful fines aganst large tech companies in the past which actually have been ignored, and the concern over having so much debris in orbit that space travel becomes difficult or impossible. We could literally ground ourselves - its important to remember that things up there won't come down.

While I agree at you that this isnt the adtech buisness staffed by ghouls that see fines as a cost of doing buisness, the idea of adding to space debris is rightfully met with horror, so any amount of money short of compoany-ending will be seen as people getting off lightly

From everything I've seen the tech nerd world basically sees fines as existing on one of two extremes, either they're a cost of doing business or they're company destroying. The idea that there can be fines or penalty schemes of any other effect is largely ignored. Since 150k is pretty small, everyone is of course advocating for a 150 million fine because that's the only other kind of fine that exists in their minds.

Yes. As pointed out to me above, this was actually the result of a consultation; so they've already met and worked together to come to this conclusion - possibly the fine is a symbol of "we're serious and have the right to fine", but just puts a stamp on the relationship they have now on how to go forward. It's also a message to the industry about what expectations will be in the future.

Companies do have a choice in many cases, so being super aggro against them isn't really beneficial. If they can be reined in by threats+negotiation, while still doing business here (within our oversight) it seems ideal.

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