In November 2008, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped her tool bag during space shuttle Endeavour's visit to the International Space Station.

This was unfortunate, as you can't pick space tools up from your local hardware store, these things are custom-made, hi-tech pieces of kit, so it's little wonder Stefanyshyn-Piper exclaimed, "Oh great!" as she saw the bag drift out of her reach toward Earth. On that day, the spacewalking astronaut became a record breaker for all the wrong reasons; this was one of the the biggest pieces of kit accidentally dropped by an astronaut.

This event, in the grand scheme of things, was pretty inconsequential (apart from being an expensive and frustrating mistake), but it was the beginning of a unique adventure for Scott Barley, a DJ for the California-based Highway Radio...

"When I saw that news about that dropped tool bag, I thought 'that will leave a lump on your head,'" Barley told Discovery Space.

As it turns out the toolbag doesn't pose too much of a risk to us on the ground, and NASA was quick to point out that the rucksack-sized bag will burn up in the atmosphere very quickly. But still, Highway Radio DJ was intrigued and had a look around on the web to find any examples of space debris hitting the ground.

That was when he stumbled on the story about the re-entry of Skylab in 1979, when parts of NASA's space station scattered over the Indian Ocean and a small corner of Western Australia.

As previously reported on Space Disco, the re-entry of Skylab came as quite a surprise for the residents of the Australian Shire of Esperance, and a light-hearted $400 fine was imposed on NASA for littering their territory. The debt was never paid.

After some further digging, Barley decided to call the Esperance mayor's office to investigate whether or not the fine was still valid. After receiving the standard "no, NASA's fine was written off years ago" message from Esperance, Barley was determined to make good on NASA's debt, despite the fact it no longer existed.