
NASA said to be investigating first allegation of a crime in space - OscarCunningham
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49457912
======
jjw1414
Before I clicked on the story, my first thought went back to the Apollo 15
"Postal Covers Incident". Each of the three crew members received $7K from a
stamp dealer to bring stamp collector memorabilia to the lunar surface and
then return them to be sold by the dealer. No criminal charges were filed, but
I wonder if the incident might be more properly considered the "first
allegation of a crime in space". From the the Wikipedia article: "There was a
Justice Department investigation into the covers. Its Criminal Division
decided in 1974 that no prosecution was warranted, but the Civil Division the
following year assumed the covers would be retained by the government. Kraft
wrote, "it was questionable that any law had been broken and [the Justice
Department] realized that dragging astronauts into court would not be a
popular pastime."

I was surprised that it was not mentioned in the BBC story.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15_postal_covers_incide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15_postal_covers_incident#Distribution_and_scandal)

~~~
chc4
There's also the "Skylab Controversy" \- when a group of astronauts aboard the
Skylab went on strike and turned off their radios to protest too long of
working hours.

I assume that since most astronauts are Air Force personal, they committed
insubordination, although were never tried for anything.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_controversy)

~~~
jjw1414
Interesting take and I agree. I always thought of it as a labor-relations
issue rather than a crime. However, the article states, "a single day on
Skylab was worth about $22.4 million in 2017 dollars, and thus any work
stoppage was considered inappropriate due to the expense". Makes the Apollo 15
scandal seem like peanuts.

~~~
ctchocula
It's interesting to consider how the balance of power tilts between strikers
and management in a situation like that. On one hand, the astronauts cost NASA
much more money and opportunity cost from lost experiment time than perhaps an
ordinary strike. On the other hand, the astronauts only have limited supplies
and the strike will eventually break itself.

~~~
walrus01
On the other hand, NASA has been known to put astronauts on a "never flies
into space again" list for even the smallest indiscretion or misstep. Engaging
in something the equivalent of a very brief labor stoppage can be a literal
career ender. Not that any of the astronauts on Skylab couldn't walk out the
door of NASA and into a new job in the aerospace industry at probably 175%+ of
their former government salary.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> Not that any of the astronauts on Skylab couldn't walk out the door of NASA
and into a new job in the aerospace industry at probably 175%+ of their former
government salary._

Curious, what are the job opportunities of ex-astronauts? I assume they're not
the kind of openings to be found on linkedin.

~~~
Merad
I don’t know about modern astronauts, but bear in mind that at the point when
the Skylab missions happened there were only about 50 astronauts total in the
US. Only about half of those had actually flown in space. I have a feeling
that being one of the ~25 people in the country with space flight experience
was enough to open doors at basically every aerospace company, most large
defense contractors, etc.

------
kyledrake
To be honest, this really doesn't feel like it needs to be a news story of
this magnitude. It feels more like some revenge tactic of said "estranged
spouse", but perhaps a better strategy here than to blow up a huge
investigation over almost nothing is just to change the damn password.

~~~
dmix
Seems very... vindictive and an overreaction by the spouses part to be
contacting the agencies:

> She filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and her family
> lodged one with NASA’s Office of Inspector General, accusing Ms. McClain of
> identity theft and improper access to Ms. Worden’s private financial
> records.

The fact she was an astronaut put her in an unique vulnerable position in the
divorce process, where there are thousands of additional administrative rules
she must observe. Normally this would just be a personal issue between two
adults or merely a police investigation.

~~~
mikeash
She was using government property at her workplace to do these things. If I
was using my work computer and network to do improper things online, I’d
expect my employer to be contacted about it.

The difference here is that she was basically stuck in the office for months.
But that doesn’t make it OK.

~~~
dmix
Sure but can't the police handle the identity theft accusations? Which will of
course end up involving her work so they'd find out either way and will likely
respond in kind.

Why bring the FTC and NASA Inspector General's Office... other than to inflict
the maximum amount of punishment?

~~~
mikeash
That’s a specific way of asking, “why bring the employer into it?” And the
answer is, because their resources were used to commit the alleged crime.

~~~
dmix
Which I mentioned doesn't necessarily have to come from an outside agency or
inspectors office to have consequences both at work and with police.

~~~
mikeash
None of this was necessary, but it’s all perfectly reasonable.

------
jfoster
How is it known that she accessed the bank account if she didn't do anything
beyond checking the balance? Similarly, why is it being investigated if that's
all she did? If you take out the "from space" element of this, it's pretty
uninteresting and probably happens all the time without being investigated.

~~~
ghaff
The information is in the original New York Times story.

"Ms. Worden [the 'estranged spouse'] put her intelligence background to work,
asking her bank about the locations of computers that had recently accessed
her bank account using her login credentials. The bank got back to her with an
answer: One was a computer network registered to the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration."

~~~
dekhn
That's incomplete, though- NASA has terrestrial computers.

~~~
mikeash
If Comcast can tell you which customer had a given IP address at a given time,
I’m sure NASA can figure out that a given IP address was the one used for ISS
traffic.

~~~
saagarjha
Or perhaps they used GeoIP:
[https://www.xkcd.com/713/](https://www.xkcd.com/713/)

~~~
Nightshaxx
I knew I was gonna find this here.

------
cryptozeus
Imagine being thousands of miles away for earth floating in the space at 10000
m/h speed , witnessing endless darkness of space, witnessing biggest mystery
of life...and still being worried about financial situation back on earth.

Human mind is funny.

~~~
xamuel
Stanley Kubrick already poked fun at this in "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968).
Midway to Jupiter, astronaut Frank Poole reclines and utters robotic-sounding
commands to the much-more-human-sounding onboard flight computer HAL while HAL
displays a video of Frank's parents blowing out candles on a birthday cake,
singing Happy Birthday to Frank, and telling Frank they're working on fixing
problems with his payroll. A few hours later, Frank's lifeless corpse would
find itself drifting through space.

------
wipseabusbus
Due to me meeting Anne from her flying Kiowa helicopters with my dad, I may
soon be able to say that I personally know a space criminal.

~~~
yellowapple
What a time to be alive.

------
sorenn111
Space law is the same as that of international waters right? Will that hold up
for long or does it need revision. interesting!

~~~
akiselev
FTA:

 _So if a Canadian national were to commit a crime in space, they would be
subject to Canadian law, and a Russian citizen to Russian law.

Space law also sets out provisions for extradition back on Earth, should a
nation decide it wishes to prosecute a citizen of another nation for
misconduct in space._

~~~
gus_massa
I is weird. I expected something like the laws for international waters, i.e.
the flag of the ship determines the jurisdiction.

In case someone in the (former) Space Shuttle kills another person on purpose,
I expect USA to prosecute him/her in spite the nationality of the murderer.

Perhaps there are special rules in the ISS because each module is from a
different country??? (What happens if someone shots from the Russian module,
the bullet goes to the European module and it kills someone in the American
module?)

~~~
twic
This has indeed been covered [1]:

> Let us suppose that an astronaut located in the module of State B shoots a
> weapon and injures another astronaut located in the module of State C: On
> which territory did the offense actually take place? In order to eliminate
> all these practical problems, the territoriality principle was again
> excluded, and instead the active nationality principle was adopted as the
> basic rule for criminal matters on the ISS.

The "active nationality principle", which is part of the space station
agreement, the treaty governing the station, states that jurisdiction belongs
to the state of which the perpetrator is a citizen. There is also a secondary
"passive nationality principle" which applies if the perpetrator's state
doesn't prosecute them, and allows the state of the victim, or which owns any
property which was damaged, to take jurisidiction.

[1]
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270646335_Criminal_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270646335_Criminal_Jurisdiction_in_International_Space_Law_Future_Challenges_in_View_of_the_ISS_IGA)

------
Symmetry
I thought this was going to be about the allegations ROSCOSMOS made that the
hole in the Soyuz capsule were due to sabotage rather than a manufacturing
error.

~~~
auslander
She was allegedly checking if payment for the drilling arrived from Roscosmos.
It was smart to use spouse bank account.

------
dvdhnt
My favorite line from the article:

> As space tourism becomes a reality, so might the need to prosecute space
> crime

~~~
labster
Forget the Space Force -- what we really need is the Galaxy Police!

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
Or, "Team America: Galactic Police"

------
herpderperator
While not related to the issue at hand, I thought this line was particularly
funny:

> Ms McClain has since returned to Earth.

Sounds like something out of a novel!

------
didibus
If I am given credentials to a bank account willingly by someone, but am not
officially a person on the account, am I not allowed legally to use the
account?

I ask that, since it appears there was no hacking involved here, so I assume
this is an account she had access to from when they were together.

~~~
belorn
Change gender of the Accused. A woman and man go through a divorce, the man
continue to keep tab of his ex-wife through their previous shared bank
account. Does that sound like a crime, even if there was no hacking involved?

~~~
didibus
Are you asking me what I think of it on an ethical level? I was more curious
about the actual legalities of it or not.

Because if it is actually a crime, me and my partner have been committing that
crime on some of our accounts.

Personally, I don't find it to be criminal no. Like giving keys to my
appartment to a friend when I'm away on vacation to check on my dog.
Obviously, if they come in my house and steal things that's different, but if
they were to come in for some seemingly reasonable reason and I didn't want
them doing that anymore I should ask for the key back or change my lock.

A divorce can be a pretty nasty thing for all parties involved. Had you shared
your bank account with your significant other in an informal way, such as
giving them your user/password for it, but not actually made them an official
account holder, and during the divorce if the partner signs in for something
seemingly reasonable, like making sure there's enough money to pay the bills,
I also don't find that criminal. You probably need to have a talk about this,
and might want to change your password if you don't want this happening
anymore. Again, would be very different if money was transferred out and
stolen.

~~~
maxerickson
Entering a property without permission, key or not, is trespassing.

------
jacquesm
Reminds me of:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/us/06cnd-
astronaut.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/us/06cnd-astronaut.html)

Is there something in being an astronaut that triggers such behavior?

------
chiefalchemist
In space no one can hear you...plea?

That aside, what laws govern space station citizens?

~~~
reaperducer
From the real article:

"The five space agencies involved in the space station — from the United
States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada — have long-established procedures to
handle any jurisdictional questions that arise when astronauts of various
nations are orbiting Earth together."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/nasa-astronaut-anne-
mc...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/nasa-astronaut-anne-
mcclain.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)

------
killjoywashere
I suspect NASA will turn this over to some other investigative body and serve
in a consultative role. I don't think NASA wants to a police role.

------
Tempest1981
So once the Space Force "launches" next week, would this be under their
jurisdiction?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Space_Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Space_Force)

------
macawfish
I was just watching this Star Trek The Next Generation episode last night
where they were investigating Captain Picard. So in my imagination this is
just like that.

------
pseingatl
Law in space: marslegalcode.org

------
HocusLocus
So what?? Why is this news? Everyone's same sex marriage tabloid tongues
lolling out?

------
DanielleMolloy
This is pure click bait.

------
donatj
They're capitalizing NASA wrong throughout. It's irritating.

------
auslander
> .. extradition back on Earth

She could seek asylum in Russian part of ISS.

~~~
smudgymcscmudge
It’s too late for that since she is back on terra firma. The article isn’t
clear about whether the accusation was made while she was still in orbit.

With apologies to Lt McClain, I would be interested to see this case go far
enough for her to pursue a jurisdictional defense. I doubt it is serious
enough for that though, but it would be good to get some precedent set before
there is a serious crime out there.

~~~
dontbenebby
Is "you can do all the crime you want in space" the precedent we want as a
species?

~~~
auslander
Yes. Have you seen The Expanse documentary?

