On July 11, 1979, America's first space station, Skylab, made an unplanned and chaotic reentry into Earth's atmosphere. While NASA calculated a high probability of a pure ocean impact, fiery chunks of the 77-ton station rained down across the Australian Outback, landing right in and around the coastal town of Esperance, Western Australia. Thankfully, nobody was hurt by the falling space wreckage, but the Shire of Esperance was not about to let humanity's premier space agency off the hook for dropping trash in their backyard.
Taking advantage of the bizarre global news coverage, the Shire of Esperance cheekily issued NASA an official $400 fine for littering on municipal land. NASA, treating the ticket as an amusing souvenir, never actually paid the bill, leaving the fine sitting unpaid on the town's books for three decades. The story remained a beloved piece of space trivia until 2009, when radio host Scott Barley learned about the outstanding cosmic debt while researching the incident.
Deciding that Earth-space relations needed mending, the radio station rallied its listeners, raised the $400 via community donations, and officially paid off the 30-year-old ticket to the Shire of Esperance, which welcomed the hilarious resolution and formally wrote off NASA's debt once and for all.