When NASA's 77-tonne Skylab station fell out of orbit in 1979 and scattered debris across Western Australia, the Shire of Esperance did the only reasonable thing: it fined the United States $400 for littering.

When NASA's 77-tonne Skylab station fell out of orbit in 1979 and scattered debris across Western Australia, the Shire of Esperance did the only reasonable thing: it fined the United States $400 for littering.

In July 1979, after debris from the re-entering American space station Skylab came down across a stretch of Western Australia, the Shire of Esperance issued NASA a 400-dollar ticket for littering. The detail that the popular version tends to drop, and the one that makes the story make sense, is that everyone involved knew it was a joke. The ticket was a piece of local humour, issued in good fun, not a serious attempt to bill a superpower. That d…