Here’s a question to go along with the moon quarantine one. When astronauts come back from space, do they have to show passports and undergo inspection by immigration and customs authorities? For example, when Neil Armstrong returned, was he welcomed by a US immigration official who demanded to see his passport and asked him what the purpose of his trip to the Moon was and whether he had anything to declare? What about Russia? Do cosmonauts, on landing, get processed through Russian Immigration?
I can see how an astronaut who somehow landed in a different country than they took off from might have to go through immigration, but what about taking off from Florida and landing in Texas with a stopover at the the IIS or the Moon? Do requirements to pass immigration only surface if a stop is made, so simply taking off from Florida in a rocket ship and landing a week later is deemed legally equivalent to a domestic airplane flight, but if a space flight stops at a non-nationally-flagged space station or on the Moon, the people aboard are deemed to have left the country?
For a further question, has an astronaut ever had significant trouble re-entering the country due to rivalry between the immigration department and the space program? E.g. if US immigration gets angry at the fact that NASA gets so much more money than they do and decides to take out their anger by subjecting returning astronauts to the maximum permitted full inspection and questioning every time they land.
Given that the identity of the astronauts is known, they have been tracked continuously during the entire flight, and they are not importing anything (except on occasion moon rocks), there would be no purpose for any such checks.
On the International Space Station, if an astronaut returns to a country that he did not depart from, I have no doubt that any immigration requirements would be waived if they were even discussed.
Thanks to Fish Cheer for providing some useful info in this thread.
Astroports are so crowded these days that sorting out legit and documented astronauts, illegal immigrants to be sent back to outer space and moon rock smugglers must be a major pain.
I believe a cosmonaut did land in what was a USSR satellite nation when he launched, but was its own nation when he landed. I think it was Ukraine. It was a cute news blurb, not a time to hassle the guy who’s lost bone density during a prolonged space stay.
“Do you have anything to declare?”
Sir, you’re going to have to come with us. Yes, yes, you say it’s “moon dust”. We’ll see about that. Right now it’s looking a lot like Heroin.
Because it’s a question they didn’t know the answer to, and that a lot of us wouldn’t have the personal experience to know the answer for ourselves?
I mean, would you believe that US military personnel traveling from a US military air base on a US Air Force transport jet have to have their bags x-rayed and clear airport security before boarding? We do. It’s freaking weird and annoying and I almost had my Swiss Army Knife confiscated. So why would I assume an astronaut gets to skip out of going through Immigration and Customs?
Customs Officer: “Anything to declare?”
Raguleader: “One Humvee, one M2 and about 3000 rounds of ammunition.”
Customs Officer: “Sharp objects, liquids?”
I would think there is an exception in the law for US government vehicles. I mean, if an American carrier group comes back from the Mediterranean, do the sailors have to clear customs? I doubt it.
Raguleader has given a good answer to that. I didn’t know military personnel had to go through those controls, but I’m not surprised. It’s easy to imagine there being no international agreement that specifically exempts astronauts from the usual rules and that therefore they might be required to carry passports just to keep things “by the book”.
The usual rules are that customs and immigration checks apply to someone returning from a visit to the territory of another country. They don’t apply to someone who overflies other countries at 40,000’, so why should they apply to an overflight at, say, 200 mi?
(It clearly is reasonable to ask about the case of visiting a space station belonging to another country.)
Actually, though, it’s a fact that the first manned flights to the moon were only after it had been conclusively proven there was not intelligent life, and thus no Lunar government, so Neil did not have to apply for a visa.
There have been cases where and astronaut or cosmonaut launched from the US in the space shuttle and later returned to the USSR in a Russian soyuz spacecraft (or vice versa. I don’t know how the paperwork was handled however. If they then had to return to their home country via commercial airline, going through customs may have been confusing for the customs agents.
