On Friday, 5 January 2018 16:40:09 UTC+1, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Thu, 4 Jan 2018 23:23:42 -0800 (PST), "Chris.B"
wrote:

Thre's a wonderful irony that nations can send anything they like up there but you need a license to fly a drone weighing a bare few grams.

In the U.S. (outside some specific jurisdictions) you don't need a
license to operate a recreational drone of fairly low mass that is
always in your line of sight. There have been efforts to require that,
but they aren't holding up yet.

That said, nobody has been hurt by falling space debris. No property
has been damaged. But quite a few people have been injured by badly
controlled drones. Some degree of regulation of the latter is
reasonable. And all the countries which fly spacecraft have agreed to
be responsible for any damage they ultimately cause on the ground.

Why does an aircraft, space station or helicopter have free reign to irritate billions?
While a motorcyclist, or car owner, can be pulled over for having a noisy exhaust.

Does a space station really irritate billions? Aircraft and
helicopters are generally seen as providing benefits that outweigh the
irritation of the noise they produce, and the amount of noise is
generally managed as best possible. A vehicle with noisy exhaust is
malfunctioning, not operating normally. It is MORE irritating than it
needs to be, so is reasonably controlled.

Keep taking the red pill, Chris.

I'll have a blue on the rocks, please! ;-)