I usually find most international treaties somewhat laughable, but this is an example of one that I wholly support! A decade or so from now I do **NOT **want to see the Chinese hawking a tire they ripped off our Rover on eBay!
Since it wouldn’t drive as fast as the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, I’m not interested.
Agreed that they remain USG property forever and ever, amen. Especially given how well-preserved most stuff will remain in outer space, this only makes sense.
I remember in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two, the Soviet (yes, the book was written before the Berlin Wall fell) cosmonauts don’t board the nine-years-abandoned U.S. spacecraft Discovery, orbiting Io, until they have permission from Washington. When they do, a U.S. astronaut says to his cosmonaut friend, “Welcome to U.S. territory!”
If the use of space goes the way most Sci Fi writers depict, one suspects that the current space treaty will eventually be replaced by something much more akin to the treaties that cover the sea. So salvage rights, and all sorts of other provisions. But whilst it remains the province of very wealthy communication companies and governments, the current treaty is what you might expect.