Who owns Telstar?

[totalitor]

Telstar I was launched 1962 and Telstar II 1963, still orbiting earth.

If I were rich collector and I want those satellites back to earth and I have rocket to catch those - could I do that? Is there a law about this?

[magnemoe]

Assuming the original owner still own it, you still own a ship even if it sink. 

[Rus-Evo]

I dont think you still own a ship that sinks.  Dont the laws of salvage apply?

[monophonic]

35 minutes ago, Rus-Evo said:

I dont think you still own a ship that sinks.  Dont the laws of salvage apply?

Varies by nation. Generally a considerable time has to pass before the ownership and responsibility (for e.g. environmental damage from leaking fuel or oil) expires. Typically the wreck then becomes the property of the state rather than free-for-all.

International waters are of course something of an unclear position. That is why the wreck of the Estonia was covered with gravel, for example. They wanted to prevent looters from disturbing what is in effect a burial ground.

[tomf]

I only really know anything about the law that applies in the UK but I would expect that many nations have similar rules

The owners of a ship that sinks remain the owners forever, although normally their claim on insurance transfers the ownership to the insurance company. Ownership of a shipwreck can be bought and sold, I know some diving groups that have bought their favorite wreck.

If you salvage anything from a wreck you have to report it to the authorities who work out who owns it. The current owner has to pay "an appropriate salvage award" to the person who found whatever it is. In practice for low value object often raised by divers(portholes, ships bells etc) the diver is often awarded the object itself rather than go through the hassle of working out what an appropriate award is.

To return to the OP's question, if you were to apply UK marine salvage law, I reckon that defunct satellites are "abandoned without hope of recovery" so the owners (AT&T) would have to pay you. Considering the difficulty of the recovery operation the salvage fee might be pretty close to the total value of the satellite so you would have a fair chance of just receiving it.

Edited January 5, 2018 by tomf

[DerekL1963]

12 hours ago, Rus-Evo said:

I dont think you still own a ship that sinks.  Dont the laws of salvage apply?

Do you think the laws of salvage are nothing but "finders keepers"?  On the contrary, it's because of the laws of salvage that you can still own a ship that sinks.

Something in space however...  that gets complicated because there isn't a body of law to fall back on.   And there's the catch that by treaty, the State that launched or authorized the launch of something retains responsibility for that something.  What form that responsibility takes has never actually been worked out.
 

[Rus-Evo]

21 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

Do you think the laws of salvage are nothing but "finders keepers"?  

Well this quote from wiki is what I am thinking:

The law of salvage is a concept in maritime law which states that a person who recovers another person's ship or cargo after peril or loss at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property so saved.

 

So whilst ownership is not transferred, there is nothing to stop someone going to take possession (if sunk or abandoned).  I have a clearer understanding now than I did before this thread. With all things legal there woykd be many laws and loopholes.

[PakledHostage]

On 05/01/2018 at 2:46 PM, DerekL1963 said:

Do you think the laws of salvage are nothing but "finders keepers"?  On the contrary, it's because of the laws of salvage that you can still own a ship that sinks.

Certainly this seems to be true in the case of the artefacts from The Franklin Expedition's Erebus and Terror. The UK and Canadian governments are currently in negotiations over ownership of those artefacts, 175 years after the ships disappeared and ~2-5 years after their wrecks were discovered.

Edited January 7, 2018 by PakledHostage
175 years, not 150

[DerekL1963]

8 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

Certainly this seems to be true in the case of the artefacts from The Franklin Expedition's Erebus and Terror. The UK and Canadian governments are currently in negotiations over ownership of those artefacts, 175 years after the ships disappeared and ~2-5 years after their wrecks were discovered.

Government owned vessels such as these are a special case.  There are (rare) situations, where a civilian ship can be considered completely abandoned and "finders keepers" applies.  (The property is not required to be returned and salvor is not due any compensation.)  This is not true of a government owned vessel, which remains the property of said government unless and until the government specifically and intentionally relinquishes ownership.  It was under this theory that the US Government successfully claimed title to CSS Hunley.  (Since the USA was the successor government to the the CSA, and neither government had ever relinquished title.)  To wrench the discussion back closer to topic, this is why the Government intervenes whenever something from Challenger or Columbia is discovered - both vehicles are still US Government property. 

 

12 hours ago, Rus-Evo said:

Well this quote from wiki is what I am thinking:

The law of salvage is a concept in maritime law which states that a person who recovers another person's ship or cargo after peril or loss at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property so saved.

So whilst ownership is not transferred, there is nothing to stop someone going to take possession (if sunk or abandoned).  I have a clearer understanding now than I did before this thread. With all things legal there woykd be many laws and loopholes.

No, there's nothing stopping someone from taking possession, but that's not "finders keepers".  The quote from Wikipedia is incomplete and misleading - if the recovered property still has a legal owner, the salvor is required to relinquish custody to said owner, and the owner is then required to pay the salvor appropriate and just compensation.  If the salvor does not relinquish custody, the owner then has legal grounds for either suing the salvor for the return (without compensation) or having him charged as a thief.

The general idea is to encourage and reward those acting in good faith from those who are not.

Edited January 7, 2018 by DerekL1963

[YNM]

It's as good as being born on Lake Konstanz, or hijacking a plane from one nation (not your nationality) that took off from another nation and crashed on yet another one (ie. a Kirgiz hijacking German plane that took off from the US that crashed in the Netherlands), or such : No one knows, we'll deal with it when they happen.

 

So if you want to know, just catch them and watch.

Edited January 7, 2018 by YNM

[Nibb31]

A couple of years ago, Jeff Bezos funded a salvage operation to recover some of the F-1 engines from Apollo from the bottom of the ocean. Despite Bezos having funded the operation, the engines remain the property of NASA and are now exposed at the Kansas Cosmosphere.

As for the Telstar satellites, they were the property of AT&T, and unless they have been sold off to some other party, they still are.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Nibb31