The Chaser Report - War on Space Waste

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

The sky is falling! And by the sky, Charles and Dom mean the enshittified LEO satellites put up by Elon Musk. So what exactly are the space capitalists of the world doing to prevent people from getting hurt? Let's find out.---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigle Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. I've dressed up for the occasion. I'm wearing a nice jacket and a nice shirt because I want to bring professionals into this podcast. I want to bring expertise. I want to bring Gravitars, if you will, to this medium. Yes, I know, because for so long, you know, for the last, I don't know, 1200 eps,

we've just been shooting from the hit, haven't we, Dom? I know. You know, and I know long-term listeners will be surprised when I say that because, you know, clearly a lot of our content, very well researched and everything, but no, it's not, actually. Yeah, a lot of the Polish is added in post by producer Lachlan. Yes, that's right. He's got AI versions of our voices.

He does amazing work. It's sort of like, you know, every morning we just say into the microphone, make a podcast, and then the magic really happens from Lachlan GPT. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible how Lachlan constructs it all. makes it pithy and yet, yet funny. I mean, it's just, it's a real skill.

But today we're doing it ourselves. We're dressed up. You're looking very dapper too, Charles May I say, well, that's just me every day. What's on the agenda? Yeah. So the thing is, I want to go through because there's been a large uptick in the number of stuff that's just falling out of the sky onto people, right?

And I want to just go through and have a look at this new social trend that's hitting, well, hitting everyone more or less around the world. It's a real phenomenon. Really? Stuff from the sky is falling on people. Okay, this sounds like something the Tosur report should cover. This is big news. Yes, this is huge news.

Monumental development. Yes, okay. Well, let's get straight into it, shall we? After these ads. So, Charles, when you say stuff, can we get slightly more specific or is it more fun if it's just stuff? Yeah, so, look, this is all arises out of about, just yesterday, SpaceX did their first quarterly earnings report because they've just listed, right,

and they had to prove to the markets that they were actually worth the trillions of dollars that the markets had paid for stock. Easy. And their stock price plummeted, some would say down to earth, upon hearing that all they'd done is double their revenue in the past year. So that was clearly not enough money to be making, partly because their costs had soared 450 percent, you know, sort of thing. But it does raise the prospect that we now have companies. You know how companies have been ruining our lives? Well, for decades now, because they're listed on the stock market.

And so, you know, Netflix just suddenly has to add ads and insidify its products. And, you know, telecommunications companies have to sort of stop working from time to time, presumably to make money. I haven't actually looked into why they do that. You know, Jet Star needs to now charge you for overhead carry-on luggage. You know, there's a new carry-on luggage fee. And we should notice, we should actually note the one exception to this, which is Carl Stefanovic, removing himself from Channel 9.

It's actually been, it's the opposite of incitification. Yeah, that's right. Ingradification. I don't know. He just sort of taken himself off. Yeah, just take himself off and do this funny, little. little bubble. So good on you, Carlos. That's genuine public service. So the thing is that all these insidifications happen for a reason, which is publicly listed companies. Like, there is the

profit motive, the greed behind everything that impels these companies to do more and more inhuman, immoral things, right? And now we have the situation where instead of, you know, all the stuff that we put up in space being done by NASA, which is, for all its fault, the sort of government agency that doesn't really have to make money, it just needs to sort of make sure things go up and stay there, right? Now we've got, you know, the public markets going, hang on, SpaceX, you know, how much more money can we get out of this? And as a result, you've got all the sort of insidification fact forces working on space, right? And the problem with putting stuff up in space, especially if you're SpaceX, which can't really afford to send things very far into space, like getting things 100 miles up

or 100 kilometers up into the air is one thing. Getting things all the way to the moon or the way to Mars is another thing, right? So all the satellites that they're sending up there, they're basically in low Earth orbit. It's called Leo. They're between 100 and, say, 300 kilometers away. And they only really make money. They're only going to be able to impress the markets and get their share price working if they just keep putting more and more stuff into space, right?

So, and it's not just SpaceX anymore. Amazon is also running its whole sort of thing. China's got its own competitor, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So what this means is that there is more junk in space, because these things only last about 11 months, like each satellite. Right. There's more junk falling out of space than there has ever been before, right? And when, when this whole problem was first discussed sort of 40 or 50 years ago, when space travel

just started to become a thing. Nobody really thought that there was going to be any sort of, like, all the agreements that everyone came to, like, okay, well, that doesn't sound like such a huge problem. Let's all just make sure everyone know, if it's going to be especially big, can you tell the other space agencies? Like, that was basically the agreement that everyone came to, right? But nowadays, what's been happening is more and more stuff is just falling to thing without anyone being informed. Like there's falling down to earth. Falling to the ground. To the ground

without anyone being forced. And there's a New York Times article from yesterday, which is worth checking out because there's some great photos in it as well. And it starts out with this family in Kenya, who back in 19, 2004, so a couple of years ago in December, residents of a nearby village of Nairobi, which is the capital, just three hours south, south of there, found a giant metal ring heavier than a horse lodged into the earth, right? And it had fallen down from space, and it was a glowing, like it was glowing orange, like it was an ember, right? And then it cooled down to a dull grey. And if you look at it, if you go to the New York Times website, it looks, like it looks, it's got rivets on it. Like, it looks really bloody dangerous. Like, it's just got

these metal teeth around this ring. It looks a bit alien, right? But it's actually, And they didn't know what it was. They informed the Kenya Space Agency. Kenya Space Agency came and had to look at it and said, yeah, it's probably something, right? And was it a quiet day otherwise for the Kenya Space Agency? Yeah, actually. What are they get up to? I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not trying to.

You are so racist, Tom, to say that. I'm not trying to heap any shit on the Kenya Space Agency. It's a genuine question as to what else they do. Because, I mean, I would say the same. Australia Space Agency. Let's be very clear. No, Australia's got satellites. Can I just make a brief sidebar to this? Yeah.

Are you aware of the... Sorry, no, you can't because I've just found out Kenya Space Agency's slogan, which is possibilities beyond our skies, aren't? Oh, that's good. I feel a very good website, actually. So, I mean, I'm glad my entirely unloaded question about the Kenya Space Agency, they've got a strategic plan 2020 to 2025. See, they've got a plan.

And they're now a space, they're a space-faring nation. That's good. It's a state-owned corporation. It is developed in 2017 to promote, coordinate and regulate space activities in Kenya. Do they know that space isn't in Kenya? There's a satellite, Typhor 1 that's up there. Very good. Oh, no.

Can I just ask? Yes, okay, yes. Are you aware of what's happening with the moon right now? What? No. It's not falling. What? I'm just thinking we're in an interesting situation where I was thinking you were really burying the lead here.

Yeah. But it's possible you haven't seen, like amongst all the things of SpaceX's that are falling to the ground. Yeah. You might not be aware of the other story involving SpaceX at the moment. Yeah. All right. Well, let me reveal this to you after the ad break because there's something else going on at the same time. The Chaser Report.

Now with extra whispers. So what's going on? You read about this yesterday, I think, and made notes. But you've got to keep up when it's SpaceX because in the next couple of hours as we record, part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket weighing four tons is going to crash. And this is happening literally a couple of hours away from when we record into the moon. It is going to crash into the moon. moon and create an 18 meter wide, four meter deep crater.

Right. Because there's so many bits floating around that, yeah, apparently the size of a school box. So wait a minute. This is not a planned thing. This is not a planned thing. This is just like accidentally. It's just a bit of junk.

We're just going to shoot this off to the moon. They're creating a new crater. But on the bright side, this is NASA really spinning it with their key partner. They're saying, oh, it's a fantastic research opportunity. Yes. It's going to. It's going to throw dust and rock outwards. You know what it'll test.

It'll test what happens if you crash something into the moon. They're planning to collect lunar data from the event. And NASA is even using this. It's not an accident. It's not an accident. It's an opportunity. The opportunity is to, and I quote here from NASA's Jimmy Russell. Actually, I think that might be the slogan of the Australian space program.

It's not an accident. It's a learning experience. Yeah. NASA's Jimmy Russell says, The impact poses no danger to Earth. I mean, good to clarify, but obviously, NASA scientists are planning to collect lunar data from the event and refine techniques for tracking objects in space.

So it's a great opportunity to kind of track space junk as it places into shit. Because the whole point is, if you didn't have a whole lot of space junk just going off and randomly sort of shooting at things, you wouldn't know how to do that. And this is a great opportunity to learn how to track all that stuff. that you wouldn't be able to know how to track unless you had to track it. It's a very circular argument, isn't it?

It's as circular as that piece of junk in Kenya, the growing ring. Yes. And I mean, but also Charles, surely, like, wouldn't Kenya be, that's a free bit of interesting, like, that's a free artifact there. Well, this is true. I don't see it. Right. So the point is, and so this is just happening over and over again.

with alarming regularity, right? Because there are now 16,000 satellites in orbit, right? 16,000. And look, to be fair, there's only been one time ever that a person has been hit by a piece of junk. You'd have to be very unlucky, right? You would. To be hit by a piece of junk.

A woman from Oklahoma in the 1990s, she got hit by a piece of debris, and she survived relatively unharmed. Isn't that amazing? It's entirely possible, Charles, that will learn in the hours ahead that there is actually a life on Mars. Yes. And that they're now dead.

In the crater. I imagine that. Amazing. Oh, no. Bullseye. No, SpaceX is just, oh, whoops. Yeah. Then the New York Times goes on to say, what happens if it falls on your home, right?

Right. And the answer is, right, that, like, there's no compensation. Like, no. I was going to say, surely an insurance. Pay out. Now, under the rules, nobody's responsible for it. Because they never, they never set up a framework of, yeah, like if SpaceX sends something up in space, they've got to keep track of it.

And there's no framework there. It's just a sort of gentleman's agreement to let everyone know. I mean, I mean, random thought, could we have a framework, please? Yeah, well, this is, well, maybe that's what the Kenya Space Agency can get onto. Maybe, maybe we should, all eyes should be looking to Kenya to coordinate. leadership. Yes. Random rings dropping from space.

The FAA proposed a rule in January. No, no. They proposed a rule. And then in January, they withdrew the idea of having a rule about how to regulate the disposal of the orbital debris. Yeah, look. Because the space industry, i.e. SpaceX and all the space capitalists, pushed back, right?

And then the United Nations Liability Convention gives countries the right. to compensation if another state's space object hurts people or damages property, but nobody has ever got any rescue. It's called the rescue and return agreement, and it's mainly been used only for the cost of returning space objects. So if it lands in your backyard, SpaceX, you know, like the government can go, okay, well, we'll pay for you to be removed and we'll get it back from you. But if you want to hold onto it, they're not going to compensate you for it.

But at the same time, Charles, I can completely understand their position. Because you can imagine the FAA, like, we're going to enforce this rule. They get one call from SpaceX going, yeah, just before you decide on that, I really hope no space debris falls on your headquarters, because that would be terrible. Yes. We don't know where it's going to go. It could go anywhere. You're right.

Because the whole thing is, the whole revolution that SpaceX has done is they can now land things on a pinpoint, can they? Yes, they can land space junk on your house. Because it feels like they know how to do that, but they somehow don't know how to track a four-ton thing that's hurtling towards the moon? Like, doesn't that seem a bit? Like, I feel like they could track. I wouldn't want to criticize SpaceX.

I quite like my house. Do you think that's what's it? Like, if you troll Elon Musk successfully on X, oh, that's true. Now, if you go viral. The risk. Or not going Elon Musk. Instead of just him, you know, muting your reply or stopping your virality, he can now just bomb your house.

So when he says let that sink in, what you'll get is a bit of space sink falling on your house at very high speed. A massive circular ember of space junk hurtling down towards. Do you think there's what? I was mentioning a giant Macquarie bank logo. Do you think the villages in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, Kenya had somehow offended Musk that they'd done some sort of meme. Maybe they pushed back against the idea of the, you know, this, I think we discussed it earlier, the notion that Elon Musk's response, I actually don't think we have,

Elon Musk's response to the Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, did you see this? Firstly, to loudly just absolutely criticise the fact that there are people of colour in the Odyssey, because that's not part of the original detail. you've got to be historically accurate. And in the original Odyssey, yes, there were sirens and the Cyclops, but there weren't any black people. So you couldn't possibly put them in now. And so he's committed Grock to creating a full feature-length version of the Odyssey

without black people in it by the end of the year. This is, imagine how much water and electricity he's going to use to realize that vision. But also, why? Why is he so upset by that? Because he really doesn't like, he really doesn't like Lepidonio being Athena, presumably. What the fuck? Or no, is she Helen of Troy?

No, she's Helen of Troy in today as Athena. Right. And he just, that's what he's spending his time on. He's really troubled by the historical accuracy. Of the time of the cyclops. What if the cyclops, like, is the racial composition of the cyclops all right? Or did he have a problem with that as well? I'm not sure. I mean, I don't think Matt Damon's Greek, just quietly either.

But he seems to be okay with that. No problems. Or Tom Holland for that matter. Anyway. What a boring man. So what's going to happen? Do we need to put nets up? That's what I would have.

I don't think so. Because we're talking a ton, one ton of space junk every week. Really? Yeah. That's what they're saying now. So I don't think a net is going to work, is it? A metric tonne once a week. A metric ton.

Of unplanned random space junk. I don't know. I can just imagine a chaser headline from back in the day about one random ton of space junk during significant architectural improvements to Adelaide. We would run that, wouldn't we? Back in the day? Yes. You know what we need.

We like Adelaide now. We need Craig to do a war on space waste. That's what we need. That's what he'll do. Yes. That's what he'll do. Yes. Craig with a giant umbrella.

Maybe that's the thing that the space junk has. yet had to confront Charles. Yes, the Keny and Space Agency is pushing back. Witty. But they haven't had a gap tooth cheeky bloke. Doing a stunt. You know, coming and stunting them. That's right.

That'll sort it right out, I'd say. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad we've solved that. So have we, I don't think we've solved that. Yeah, so, Annette, I think what we need is. I hope the moon's going to survive for this. This is how Alba wins the next legion. He promises a Patriot missile launcher.

on every street corner. Because then... That's good. And it's not to defend from anyone. I'm not saying we remilitarise Australia because we're worried about foreigners. We're worried about Elon, well, I suppose Elon Musk is a foreigner. But we're worried about space junk coming from outer space. I think that that's a battery of missiles.

It's not a bad idea. Here's another one for you. Yeah. A bit cheaper. Yeah. And Aussie ingenuity. Oh, yeah. But also fun for kids.

A battery of Patriot missiles is not fun for kids. No, exactly. What if instead of that, we just had an enormous network of defensive trampolines spread out across Australia. Yes. Yes. On every roof. Yes. And you can go up and you can jump around and have a good time.

Yeah, get rid of the rooftop solar. Or maybe actually, in addition to the rooftop solar, you have a rooftop trampoline program. A giant black, the giant black trampoline could be a solar cell. And you have this. We need to develop combo solar panels. Solar panel. Not submarines. I mean, subsidies.

You do the subsidy scheme. Yes. You extend it from. Trampolines on roof scheme. Yes. See, why don't they get us to run the country? When the space junk hits Charles, we get to say that Australia's favorite words. What?

Go back to where you came from. Yes. Oh, that's great. We control which space junk comes into this country and the terms in which they arrive. Yes, I think this is our those Tampa moment, isn't it? This is Albo's tamper. Space tamper. He's not going to go for it.

No, I think that's, no, I think he is. That's why Tony Burke. Because Tony Burke was scheduled to speak at the press club today, Thursday, right? Yeah. About cutting immigration. And they pulled it at the last minute. He said, oh, it's not going to do that. And it's apparently because there's internal squabbles about whether that's the right policy

inside the Labor Party. I think it's because they've realized the threat is not from immigrants. It's from space. and they're going to rejig the policy. So Tony Burke becomes the first minute. Like he announces the war on space. He's not for home affairs. It's a space defense minister.

Yes, exactly. Maybe he's deferring the speech until he can announce a far-reaching deal with cyclone trampolines. Sort this stuff out. We will find out. Still, I feel a little less safe than you could start of the podcast. Charleson, that's what every podcast should really. do, isn't it? That's what we're here for.

We're part of the Iconicles network. Catch you tomorrow. Get your trampolines now before the price hike.