What happens if an astronaut has a warrant for thier arrest?

[lextacy]

I was waiting for my 6 minutes to apoapsis and this though jumped into my mind. So what do you suppose would happen? Would thier be a police officer thrown in a Soyuz to go get Chris Hadfield or others and arrest them? Would the ISS not be bound to a certain countries laws? What about Mars trips? Do they just automatically become fugitives untill their splashdown in the Pacific? Can an astronaut refuse to leave the ISS? Im thinking the law is a tricky beast when it comes to space.

DISCUSS!

[Special Agent Sigvan]

They send in the Space Police to get them.

Which then results in a high speed Space Chase.

[Kerbart]

Aside from spaceprograms being so expensive that they vet the crap out of everyting, accidents can happen of course (cue diapernaut).

But, let's focus on the purpose of the arrest: to secure the suspect and make sure you will have him/her in custody for a court case. Now, where would said astronaut go? It's not like they're a flight risk. You just request that he/she leaves with the first upcoming crew change (which was likely the schedule anyway) and problem solved.

Of course there's the option that the suspect refuses to board the return craft. But people have to sleep. Can then be sedated. And duct-taped to their chair. I doubt it would ever be a real problem.

Arthur Clarke had a funny short story where the Brits on a joint Anglo-American-Soviet mission decided to stay one day later on the moon to clean up experiments, as it provided a loophole for a tax break. I guess that's as far as it'll go.

[astropapi1]

I think NASA has a special procedure for restraining a crew member in extreme cases (with that sticky transparent paper thing, don't remember its name), so I guess something similar could be used to put somebody under "arrest".

The whole idea is pretty stupid, though. The only case I see for this to be used is an astronaut going crazy and destroying ISS components.

[Guest]

Not really. Remember, a crime doesn't have to be detected immediately. They might end up wanting him for something he's done before launch. That would be embarrassing, to say the least, I don't think there are clear procedures, and I'd expect a political storm to start up, too.

I think that a Mars traveller would be pretty much safe from persecution if the mission was a long term one. Once you're on a spacecraft to Mars (and not expecting to return for a few years or more), there's little anyone on Earth can do. I suppose that they could cut into his/her pay or try to make an arrest upon return, but that's all. On an one-way mission like Mars One, if the colony wouldn't be big enough to be able to maintain its own justice system, then the criminal would likely end up getting off scot-free.

[razark]

You're talking about the government. There's procedures in place for just about anything. Some of them do involve duct tape if needed.

(You only hear about the crazy stuff because no one ever thought of it before it happened.)

Yes, the crew had to file a Customs declaration to reenter the US. Not to mention stories about early shuttle astronauts carrying their passports just in case they landed somewhere else.

It's not like they're a flight risk.

If an astronaut is not involved in flights and risks, then it's not really an astronaut, now is it?

[kerbiloid]

As we can know on good authority (i.e. Elite), the will send poilce Vipers and shoot down any Fugitive status guy.

[sedativechunk]

In about 60~ years of spaceflight, this has never happened. The ONLY time I heard of someone going mad in space was I think during a Mir mission one, where someone got threatened with a knife or something. Also during a long-duration training mission in isolation, two cosmonauts got in a bloody fist fight because one of them french kissed a female canadian astronaut that was part of the training mission. It was some kind of training mission to see how people would be on a 8 month voyage to Mars or something. This one wasn't actually in space but in a russian simulation room thing.

One of you mentioned the diaper chick too, that was Lisa Nowak. You got to admit... she was pretty HOT in her NASA days. She was cute with her astronaut outfits on, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be trapped in a spacecraft with her looks for an extended period of time! She was part of a love triangle and kidnapped the other women or something, I can't remember the exact details. Sad story though, a successful and decorated astronaut who got charged with attempted murder or something and is now a joke to the entire world. Love and relationships will make you do crazy things. I've been traumatized by a women before and it definitely makes your brain flip.

Moving back to the main topic, NASA and other space agencies are extremely critical with who they hire and put into space. I sincerely doubt any of them will ever be put on arrest while in space for something. They are given several mental evaluations and thorough background checks. But you have to wonder, if someone will ever put up a front and do something terrible in space. Kill several astronauts and potentially destroy a multi-billion dollar space station that two nearly two decades to build. It would be catastrophic and it would only take one sick, psychopath to try it. Look at James Holmes, someone who appeared totally normal and was a prosperous PhD student. Brains and track record aren't always a good thing.

[zekes]

They send in the Space Police to get them.

These Guys?

[KerbMav]

.

It was a joke.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/10/space-travel

http://www.space.com/7044-moon-apollo-astronauts-customs.html

[razark]

It was a joke.

Awww.... that's sad.

At least the Grumman invoice is real, though.

[cantab]

If the arrest warrant was to be issued by either the astronaut's country or the spacecraft's, I think it simply wouldn't be issued. The high-level government would lean on the police to quietly postpone it to avoid bad publicity and affecting the astronaut performance.

[KerbMav]

Awww.... that's sad.

At least the Grumman invoice is real, though.

As real as the customs paper.

[Brethern]

Aside from spaceprograms being so expensive that they vet the crap out of everyting, accidents can happen of course (cue diapernaut).

But, let's focus on the purpose of the arrest: to secure the suspect and make sure you will have him/her in custody for a court case. Now, where would said astronaut go? It's not like they're a flight risk. You just request that he/she leaves with the first upcoming crew change (which was likely the schedule anyway) and problem solved.

Of course there's the option that the suspect refuses to board the return craft. But people have to sleep. Can then be sedated. And duct-taped to their chair. I doubt it would ever be a real problem.

Arthur Clarke had a funny short story where the Brits on a joint Anglo-American-Soviet mission decided to stay one day later on the moon to clean up experiments, as it provided a loophole for a tax break. I guess that's as far as it'll go.

Of course you're setting the people up who sedated and bound a person who is innocent until proven guilty for a lawsuit.

[Whirligig Girl]

Situation: Astronaut kills, like, seven innocent people before going to space. He seems just fine and dandy, nothing suspicious. Then they find that he's murdered the seven people. He doesn't have any intentions of killing his cremates or anything, but just in case the crew restrains him. They have a telecommunications court trial. Jury finds him guilty. Sentence: DEATH. This is good (as long as you are okay with the death penalty), because all they'd do is lob him out the airlock. Suddenly there's more food, more air, and less mass to drag around the mission! Yay! First death in space!

[razark]

As real as the customs paper.

Sheesh. Next you're going to tell me that they don't really sell satellites, right?

[GoSlash27]

If the guy (or gal) is in orbit, he's not exactly a flight risk. What's he gonna do, jump out of an airlock and make a run for it?

Arrest them after landing.

Best,

-Slashy

[kerbiloid]

This is good (as long as you are okay with the death penalty), because all they'd do is lob him out the airlock.

Suddenly there's more food, more air, and less mass to drag around the mission! Yay! First death in space!

Good?! Just loose about 70 kg of edible biomass?! No way! Use Life Support converters instead.

Btw: why real maniacs almost never look as "fine and dandy" as Dr. Lecter? Just degraded outsiders or full psychos.

[razark]

First death in space!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11

[Kerbart]

Good?! Just loose about 70 kg of edible biomass?!

I like the way you think!

[NASAHireMe]

A more interesting question is not HOW they get arrested, but IF. Specifically, how jurisdictional laws apply in space. I have a moderate background in international space law, enough to give a hastily-thought out answer, at least...

Space law derives primarily from, and has many parallels to, air law and sea law. Territorial sovereignty under air law extends ad coelum from their territory's surface to infinity. So if you're flying above Guinea and someone commits a murder, Guinea has the jurisdiction to prosecute you. But so does the country under which the plane is registered (similar to the flag of registration, for ships). And so does the country of the murderer, AND the country of the victim, if those countries decide to invoke the custom of extraterritorial jurisdiction. In practice, it usually defaults to the country of registration, but enough custom has occurred supporting the other jurisdictional claims that they are part of customary law.

Space obviously poses a unique jurisdictional question because spacecraft in orbit necessarily cross national boundaries thousands of times a day. The current corpus of space law (consisting mainly of the five outer space treaties) doesn't explicitly define a new jurisdictional regime. Fortunately, there have been so few incidents that the jurisdictional question has never fully been settled. Everyone has (more or less) acted responsibly in space, enough that some scholars argue a new customary tradition has been formed. But others argue, can space law really have 'widespread, commonly-accepted, time-tested practices' (which is the most common basis for customary law) when we've only been space-faring as a species for less than 70 years? Especially when only a handful of countries have any sort of space capabilities at all?

In order to get around these jurisdictional issues in the handful of cases where it really matters (namely, international human spaceflight projects like the ISS, Mir, Space Shuttle, etc.), the criminal liability statutes are hard-wired into the Memoranda of Understanding's (MOUs) and international treaties like the 1998 ISS treaty. See an example here: http://web.archive.org/web/20060913194014/http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/file_download.php/785db0eec4e0cdfc43e1923624154cccFarand.pdf

Whether these hard-wired jurisdictional outlines are enough to constitute a 'custom' that will endure and be applied in other cases, is still unknown.

TL;DR: space jurisdictional issues are in their infancy and unsolved; click the link to see how the ISS handles arrests.

[Guest]

In about 60~ years of spaceflight, this has never happened. The ONLY time I heard of someone going mad in space was I think during a Mir mission one, where someone got threatened with a knife or something.

.......

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Source?

Not too short