On 10/27/2010 9:05 AM, Rick Jones wrote:


Since no terrestrial governments "own" (speaking legally rather than
practically) space wouldn't those letters of marque have to come from
the UN?-) Privateers would then be permitted to paint their ships that
lovely light blue color

Oh yeah, the UN space pirates: "Strike your flag or I'm going to issue a
strongly-worded letter." :-D
Since space law is primarily based on the law of the open sea, you could
indeed have two nations at war with each other trying to either destroy
or seize each other's space assets. The Soviets were concerned we were
going to send a Apollo mission to try and board one of their Salyut
stations, And I saw at lest one magazine illustration back around
1974-75 of two Soyuz grabbing control of Skylab after our final mission
to it.
It probably didn't help the Soviet's paranoia that minus its solar
arrays, a Salyut would fit in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

Pat