So suppose these satellites do go up, If they aren't in the jurisdiction of any single country, whats stopping the US(or any country) from just shooting them down?
The debris would be harmful to other satellites in orbit. Since it introduces significant risk, they cannot just shoot them down without a good reason.
I would imagine they are working on, or already have, methods for disabling satellites without blowing them up and nudging them out of a stable orbit.
Must be a way to ruin the solar panels with a laser or similar. I assume non-state actors won't be able to launch satellites that use a nuclear energy source?
The X-37 (or whatever it ends up being called in the future) likely could snatch them right out of orbit without harming anything. I have no idea if it would be worth the expense, but that sort of capability is almost certainly a goal of the design. I have no doubt that at least the USAF and maybe their foreign counterparts are very invested in just this problem.
A group that can launch a satellite in orbit is also capable of launching a nuclear weapon in orbit. (That is the reason the US was so freak by Sputnik).
So presumably the US is smart enough not to mess with such groups (even if they don't actually have nuclear weapons they would still be able to do great damage with conventional explosions or even a piece of rock).
Actually, if I recall correctly, most nations consider all airspace above them to be within their national boundaries.
Pretty stupid, I know, but probably one of those things that worked "well enough" until technology made it seem absurd.
I remember this came up because people were getting served process on airplanes, even if they never landed in the country/state beneath them at that moment.
Airspace, yes. Space space, no -- Jurisdiction doesn't extend above the atmosphere. Rather, objects in space are governed by and the legal responsibility of the country from which they launched, per the Outer Space Treaty.
The reason for this, by the way, dates back to a bit of cold war strategising which pre-dated even Sputnik. Both the Americans and Soviets decided that it was more important to be able to know what the other was doing than to extend their territorial claims up to orbit. This helped to keep the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction in a relatively static lock; otherwise it would have been far mor dynamic and dangerous. Therefore the US did not protest when Sputnik flew overhead, and the USSR did not object to American satellites; in 1967 this was formalised by the Outer Space Treaty:
Airspace sounds like it wouldn't include space without air, so maybe it should be called spacespace. That's a pretty interesting idea: the United States would own 1.9% of the observable universe.
"A space ownership issue of current practical importance is the allocation of slots for satellites in geostationary orbit. This is managed by the International Telecommunication Union. The 1976 Declaration of the First Meeting of Equatorial Countries, also known as the Bogotá Declaration, signed by several countries located on the Earth's equator, attempted to assert sovereignty over those portions of the geosynchronous orbit that continuously lie over the signatory nation's territory. These claims did not receive international support or recognition and were subsequently largely abandoned." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_real_estate
If the satilites are cheap enough (say €100) you just launch more. Let the whack a mole game begin.
Other factors: the space might not be owned by anyone but the satilites might be. Sure the US government in us courts for damages. Get an injunction ruok prevent them doing it again.
