BrainStuff Classics: How Would Authorities Handle a Murder in Space?

Investigating murders right here on planet Earth can be tricky -- how would it be handled in space? Who would even be in charge? Learn what current and future laws may apply in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://people.howstuffworks.com/murdered-in-space.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is a classic episode from
the podcast's archives. Space exploration is a complicated venture. Space
is trying to kill you, So we're a little further
off from true space tourism than some private entities would

(00:24):
have us believe, But eventually we're probably going to have
to deal with other humans trying to kill you in space.
In this episode, we get into what would happen if
there were to be a murder in space. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren vogel Bomb here. Maybe it will be a jealous

(00:44):
astronaut who decides to eliminate a rival in an orbital
love triangle, or maybe being cooped up in a spacecraft
on an interplanetary flight will cause one crew member to
finally lose it at a colleague's annoying throat clearing. Or
maybe it will be a killing made to look like
an accident for some kind of nefarious space plot. But
sooner or later, it seems likely to happen. Given humans

(01:07):
propensity for committing homicidal violence against one another all over
the world, somebody is going to commit a murder in
space or on another planet or moon, and when it happens,
authorities will have to figure out how to catch the
perpetrator and restore justice. But it's not going to be easy.
Investigating a murder in space would be vastly more complicated

(01:29):
and difficult than probing a crime on Earth, and law
enforcement agencies and courts may have to deal with tricky
jurisdictional issues that end up requiring negotiations among spacefaring companies,
and until the laws are ready written, judges will have
to take statutes and legal standards that were developed to
deal with murder allegations on Earth and figure out how
to apply them to accusations of lethal violence in space.

(01:54):
You might be surprised to learn that nations already have
legal jurisdiction that stretches outside the confines of this planet.
That's covered an Article eight of the nineteen sixty seven
Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the
exploration and Use of outer Space, including the Moon and
other celestial bodies. It specifies that whenever one of the

(02:15):
nations that's a party to the treaty launches an object
the spacecraft, satellite, or space station into space or builds
one on a celestial body, that nation retains jurisdiction and
control over it. Thus, according to legal experts, if a
US astronaut is accused of killing another American while traveling
in a NASA spacecraft or on a commercial space vehicle

(02:36):
launched from the United States, the FBI and federal prosecutors
would be within their authority to arrest the alleged killer
and bring them back to Earth for trial in federal court.
Things might get a little more complicated if the murder
occurs on the International Space Station and the alleged killer
and victim are citizens of different countries.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
But yes, there are experts in this. We spoke via
email with Franz G. Vanderdunk, the outmal professor of space
law at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's College of Law.
They said, Article twenty two of the nineteen ninety eight
intergovernmental Agreement concluded between the parties deviates from the aforementioned
international treaty clauses and by contract concedes jurisdiction to the

(03:20):
state of nationality of the offender. But there is a
caveat quote if the life or safety of persons with
other nationalities and or the safety of the space station
is at stake. Consultation should take place with these other
countries concerned on which country should actually initiate prosecution, which
may result in the country of nationality of the victim

(03:41):
doing that. But this only covers the International Space Station
or ISS. Things could get even more complicated jurisdictionally if
there's a killing on a future private sector orbital hotel,
the sort of place where this is probably more likely
to occur. We also spoke via email with Michelle Hanlin,
Associate director of the Air and Space Law Program at

(04:03):
the University of Mississippi School of Law. She said, if
you have four hundred civilians in space, you know crime
inevitably is going to happen. We send the most disciplined
and fit people, the best of humanity to the iss
With a hotel, you're not going to be able to
impose the same standards you'd need to make money. You're
going to get a lot greater variety of people, and

(04:23):
you know there is going to be crime, possibly from
stealing a watch all the way to murder. Who actually
qualifies as the hotel's launching state with jurisdiction under the
nineteen sixty seven treaty could be murky too. It could
be Nation A, which is home to the company that
operates the hotel, or it could be Nation B, where
the installations components were manufactured, or Nation C, where the

(04:47):
launch pad for the rocket that transported the parts into
space was located, or Nation D, home to the company
that rented the launch pad. Hanland said, arguably any of
these states could have jurisdiction as wes built. Crimes in space,
particularly incidents involving nationals from different countries, most likely would
lead to diplomatic negotiations to see who gets to take

(05:08):
charge and what If an astronaut on a space walk
decides to, say, cut another astronaut's tether, who would have
jurisdiction then, since the act would have occurred outside of
an object controlled by a nation. We also spoke via
email Henry R. Hertzfeld, a research professor and director of
the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University's Elliott School

(05:29):
of International Affairs. He said, although there is no sovereignty
outside spacecraft, there are analogies to the law on ships
in international waters and also to issues that might occur
in Antarctica, both places with no national sovereignty. Any person
in space has a national citizenship is the responsibility of
the launching state or the person state of citizenship for

(05:50):
their activities in space, and would be tried for a
violation of the law in the appropriate state. Let's assume
that the US takes jurisdiction over a space market. Investigating
the crime and building a case is going to be
tricky considering that the crime scene and potential witnesses are
outside the Earth. Hamlin said, you might have to add
a whole new profession space cup. There's going to be

(06:13):
a tremendous cost to send someone into space just to
investigate a murder, and gathering evidence in space or on
another planet or moon might be especially difficult. DNA, which
is increasingly a key means of identifying perpetrators, would age
differently on Mars than on Earth because of the increased
exposure to solar radiation due to the red planets in

(06:33):
our atmosphere. Additionally, lower gravity would lead to such things
as different splatter patterns from stab wounds. On the plus side,
the ubiquitous Martian dust clinging to the exteriors of spacesuits
and other surfaces might provide a valuable new sort of evidence.
Hamlin figures that investigators and prosecutors will find a way
to deal with it. She said, our law developed for

(06:54):
fingerprints in DNA. When you prosecute a criminal case, you
do what you can with what you're given. Space murder
may also require the courts to grapple with Fourth Amendment issues,
since astronauts are continually being monitored in myriad ways, including
on video. Hanlon said, there's a value to having cameras
in every room of a spacecraft, but do you have

(07:15):
an expectation of privacy? She expects that many of these
questions will be resolved by wise judges and lawyers, but
she had also like to see spacefaring communities come together
and work out a new international agreement on how to
collaborate on handling future crimes in space. She said, what
we don't want is an international space regime that has
very different concepts from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Hopefully we can

(07:38):
explore space together as a species and have common understandings.
Today's episode is based on the article what Happens if
someone is murdered in Space on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written
by Patrick J. Kiger.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Rain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how
stuffworks dot com. It is produced by Tyler Klaing. Podcasts
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