Salvage rights

--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> --- In ssi_list@... "Ed Minchau"

> > As long as Hubble is still functional, nobody else but NASA can
> > legally touch it. However, it is down to 3 operational
gyroscopes
> > out of six, so once two more fail it becomes junk. Space junk
> falls
> > under the laws of salvage; if you can acquire it, then it is
yours.
> >
> > There is a lot more junk up there, some of it orbiting for
decades
> > already, from dead GEO satellites to spent Apollo stages.
Notice
> > the competition between various space agencies and private
> industry
> > to salvage this stuff? None.
> >
> > Ed
>
> Space junk doesn't fall under the laws of salvage. Point to a
source
> that supports your assertion please.
>
> TangoMan

I have looked around a bit, but I can't find very much on space law
regarding salvage. Article 8 of the UN outer space treaty states:

"A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched
into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control
over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer
space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into
outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial
body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their
presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to
the Earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits
of the State Party to the Treaty on whose registry they are carried
shall be returned to that State Party, which shall, upon request,
furnish identifying data prior to their return."

So clearly, ownership of Hubble would stay with NASA (or whatever US
government agency owns it). Which brings us to Article 7:

"Each State Party to the Treaty that launches or procures the
launching of an object into outer space, including the moon and
other celestial bodies, and each State Party from whose territory or
facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage
to another State Party to the Treaty or to its natural or juridical
persons by such object or its component parts on the Earth, in air
or in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies."

This is why Russia had to deorbit Mir, and why NASA has to do
something about Hubble.

I also found this entry on alt.space.history:

http://yarchive.net/space/politics/salvage_law.html

[ I'd suggest reading "Salvage Law for Outer Space", in the
proceedings of
Space 92 (the ASCE engineering-in-space conference), which is
written by
an honest-to-God lawyer and discusses the details of Earth salvage
law
first.

"Some nations, including the United States, have made an exception
to the
rule of sovereign immunity specifically for the purposes of
salvage... the
United States permits salvage awards to US nationals, and to foreign
nationals on the basis of reciprocity, for services rendered to
government
ships..." ]

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the ASCE proceedings online;
the '92 proceedings are cited by most of the bibliography pages that
came up on my "space law salvage" Google search. I assume the quote-
within-the-quote above is taken from these proceedings.

I don't know if what Wayne N. White Jr. (the author of the space
salvage paper in the ASCE proceedings) wrote in '92 is still true
today. If so, then objects launched by the USA such as Hubble and
space shuttle external tanks fall under this exception.

You're pretty good with research, tango, maybe you can come up with
some better sources.

Ed