[gmueckl]

I see that customs declaration in the context of the Outer Space Treaty from 1967. It stipulates that outer space cannot be appropriated by by any nation. My hypothesis here is that the political message underneath this customs form stunt is an acknowledgement that the crew has left the United States and returned. However, I have nothing that supports this claim.

[umanwizard]

Do US Navy sailors in international waters have to go through customs on returning to port in the US? I don’t know the answer, but that’s probably the closest analogy.

[pyuser583]

The US Space Treaty rejected using the high seas as a legal metaphor. Instead it went with Antarctica.

The high seas are easy to use commercially, but also very prone to conflict. Wars are fought over tiny straits, and understandably so.

The Antarctic treaty decided the antarctic was too useless to fight over, so the signers decided to make it difficult to use in exchange for making it difficult to fight over.

Obviously space is a more like the seas. But nobody wanted a war over outer space (just look at the reaction to the Star Wars programs in the 1980s).

Antarctica is just a legal dead zone. What happens if a scientist on a station murders another scientist? On an American station, it was unclear until the 1980s. What happens if a passenger on a cruse ship murders another passenger? The FBI has people on standby - you'll be arrested when you return to your home port. Probably sooner.

The legalities are space are difficult because we decided to make them so. This is changing, and fast. Which is good.

[jcranmer]

I don't think so, but you do need to fill out a customs form to ship a package to someone on a US Navy ship.

[RandomBacon]

If you're shipping the package from the U.S., that is incorrect.

I ordered Amazon packages addressed to me on U.S. Navy ships.

Ships have FPO addresses which are treated and formatted like a domestic ship.

[RandomBacon]

Corrction: … like domestic address.

[jki275]

If we make port calls anywhere outside the US we definitely go through customs on return.

[ofalkaed]

No, not even civilians need to do that. Ultimately the only time you have to is when there is documentation of your being in the a foreign country and if there is no documentation you probably don't want to draw attention to yourself. This is why so many people where able to go to and from Cuba when it was technically illegal, US and Cuba agreed to not document/stamp the passports of private citizens.

[umanwizard]

It is still technically illegal to go to Cuba without a specific whitelisted reason (and tourism isn’t on the list). It’s just not strictly enforced.

[ofalkaed]

So it is not illegal? you just need to go through the proper bureaucracy as you do with every countries. Last I looked into it a few years back it was easy to get the paper work, one person I found who went there just signed up for guitar lessons in Havana to study Cuban guitar, showed the paperwork for the guitar classes and was good to go because it was for educational reasons even if the guitar lessons only accounted for a tiny portion of their time there. The white listed reasons are fairly broad and easy to work within, sure you can't just hop on a plane for a weekend visit but that is true of many countries that no one would say it is illegal to go to.

[umanwizard]

The point is nothing has changed about the legality. It has always been allowed to go for one of these whitelisted reasons, you just had to apply in advance.

Now it is still legal to go for exactly the same set of reasons, they just don't bother actually checking. There's no "paperwork" you need to get; you just tell the check-in agent which legal reason you fall under.

[ofalkaed]

I have only researched this from the standpoint of going there by private boat which is different and has some extra work including getting approval from the USCG but what I picked up about general travel is that doing the paper work allows you to take a direct flight, can save you from headaches down the line and offers some protection from headaches caused by how this changes in the future. What changed is how the law is enforced, not the law itself and this changes every decade or so.

[agagagag]

Of course not, if we did they’d find my dog I bought in Vietnam

[kevin_thibedeau]

I met an AF cargo loadmaster once who told me that they can smuggle anything back to the US that they can fit in the plane. He was importing E-bikes from Japan.

[csours]

Following this line of thought - this is may be the exact analogy that NASA wanted to counteract.

[umanwizard]

Why? What's the difference between a US spacecraft in international space and a US watercraft in international waters?

[quartz]

Since the astronauts were up there planting flags... I'd think it's less about the vessel in space and more about making it clear that the land visited isn't considered claimed as part of the US.

[nrb]

If the distinction is that the US watercraft are military and as such are not subject to customs, then making it clear that returning astronauts are not on a military mission sends a diplomatic signal.

[csours]

NASA wants space to feel non-militarized.

US Service Personnel don't follow the civilian process for Customs, so making astronauts actually follow the civilian process reinforces the non-militarized feeling for space.

[bongodongobob]

I don't think so because the ship is technically US soil afaik.