In 1979, NASA's first space station, Skylab, fell to Earth. The intention was for it to crash into the Indian Ocean, but it survived deeper into the atmosphere than anyone expected. Once it finally broke apart, pieces of the lab reached as far as western Australia. The largest pieces of debris landed near the town of Esperance. Pieces of metal were falling from the sky, so town leaders had to do something about it.

They issued NASA a $400 citation for littering. The debt went unpaid.

It was technically a humorous jab, and in 2009, a California radio host raised the funds to pay off the debt. But it highlights how Skylab's fate became something of a joke in the 1970s and how we let a space station fall to Earth without having a replacement waiting in the wings.

And here we are again, nea

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