Blue-sky thinking? Petition in Ukraine to tax Russian satellites for fly-overs

29 Mar, 2016 15:21 / Updated 8 years ago

It seems some people have way too much time on their hands. A petition has been submitted to the Ukrainian parliament website to charge Russia for satellites flying over the country. If Moscow doesn’t pay, the satellites should be taken down for “illegal trafficking.”

“Charge for Russia’s space orbital vehicles flying over Ukraine’s territory. If payment is refused, the property should be busted and destroyed for illegal trafficking,” reads the petition filed by Maksim Kovalevich on Monday.

In the event the petition collects 25,000 signatures within a three-month period (92 days), it will be sent to the president for consideration. This would not guarantee, however, that it would make it into a draft proposal.

So far the petition has only gained six signatures, but it still has 91 days to go.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s vice-prime minister in charge of the military industry, has made a Twitter post in which he suggested using good old-fashioned methods to counter Russia’s ‘untaxed operations’ in space.

“Ukraine discusses shooting down fly-by Roscosmos [Russian state space corporation] satellites. I guess all of the National Guards are going to pull the sling?”