Add the phrase house earlier than any mundane phrase, and all of a sudden, it turns into approach sexier. Space law. Space marriage and babies. Space archaeology! And most not too long ago, within the information: space crime.
Dozens of news have speculated on what might have been the world’s first-ever space crime. In a grievance to the Federal Trade Commission and a letter to NASA, Summer Worden accused her estranged accomplice, astronaut Anne McClain, of identification theft. The two agree that McClain accessed Worden’s checking account whereas aboard the International Space Station. However, McClain’s lawyer claims that is one thing McClain had all the time executed all through the couple’s relationship, and that McClain “strenuously denies that she did something improper.” Authorities are nonetheless investigating the case.
So far as space crimes go, this state of affairs is fairly tame. Identification theft shouldn’t be taken evenly, however nobody on this state of affairs was in fast hazard—Worden doesn’t even counsel that McClain used or moved funds around—and because of an intergovernmental settlement signed in 1998 to help the International Space Station, it was apparent that the U.S. has jurisdiction on this scenario. That settlement “makes it very clear that if a criminal offense is dedicated on the station, if it doesn’t have an effect on another occasion. It stays the jurisdiction of the nation who dedicated the crime,” says Michelle Hanlon, a professor of air and area legislation on the University of Mississippi.
However, given what we find out about human conduct on Earth, there’s no motive we won’t additionally act poorly in space. Space crime appears poised to get quite a bit messier. “There are going to be crimes and cases of negligence, and we don’t have a system to take care of that but,” says Hanlon. We’ve got some guidelines written into present space legislation, however, of their present kind, they’re free strategies greater than functioning coverage.
