The first space crime astronaut steals his partner's account in space
According to the global times, citing U.S. media reports, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating a case: an astronaut entered the bank account of her partner who is suing for divorce from the international space station without authorization. This is likely to be the first alleged crime in space.
From space 'Black' into the former account
The protagonist of this strange story is a female astronaut -- Anne McClain. She graduated from the famous U.S. military academy at West Point. She was a pilot of the U.S. Air Force and has a flight record of more than 800 hours in the Iraqi theater. She later became a qualified test pilot and was selected as an astronaut by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2013.
In 2014, McLean married her same-sex couple, then US Air Force Intelligence Officer summer Worden. In 2018, Walden filed for divorce. US media reported that the divorce procedure is scheduled to be completed in October this year.
Walden had a son through artificial surrogacy before marrying McLean. McLean and Walden raised the child together in their nearly four-year marriage.
Why divorce? According to the New York Times, McLean once requested the local court that if the two sides could not reach a common agreement, they could be granted the right to jointly raise the child and the "exclusive right to designate the child's main residence".
Later last year, McLean accused Walden of violent attacks on him. Walden filed for divorce, but the court rejected it. Walden said it was a step in McLean's attempt to control his son.
Earlier this year, when McLean flew to the international space station for a mission, the tension between the two had intensified.
One day, Walden noticed that her bank account had been accessed by an unauthorized computer. This computer uses NASA related networks. After an investigation, she suspected that her predecessor, astronaut McLean, hacked into her bank account from the international space station.
McLean was on a six-month mission to the international space station when he was accused of "hacking" into Walden's bank account. After discovering that the bank account was stolen, Walden accused McLean of identity theft (using other people's names and personal information to obtain credit cards, other items or withdraw cash from other people's accounts, etc.)
According to the New York Times, McLean admitted that he did log into each other's bank account from the international space station, but denied that he had done anything wrong.
McLean's lawyer explained that she logged into each other's bank account from the international space station to check, just to confirm that Walden had enough money to take care of the children raised together before the divorce. NASA's supervision unit has been involved in the investigation.
It is reported that the NASA inspector general's Office (Office of inspector general) has contacted the two people on the charge of 'illegal intrusion into bank accounts'.
Which country's laws should regulate space crimes?
Mark middot, director of the global space law center at Cleveland State University; Mark Sundahl said he was not familiar with any charges of crimes in space, which was a legal gap before.
However, he said that committing crimes in space does not mean that they are not bound by the law.
"The more time we spend in space, anything we do on earth will happen in space."
What about astronauts breaking the law? Here we want to talk about 'space law'.
The legal framework agreed upon by the five countries that own the space station - the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada - provides that national laws apply to people and property in space.
Therefore, if Canadian nationals commit crimes in space, they will be bound by Canadian law, and Russian citizens will be bound by Russian law. The EU exists within the legal framework as a country, but any EU country can extend its national laws and regulations to EU space equipment and personnel.
If one country decides to prosecute another country's citizens for space misconduct, the space law also provides for their extradition to earth.
In other words, astronauts will be bound by the laws of their respective countries.
However, so far, the law has not been tested in practice & hellip& hellip;