The spaceship “Conestoga” is returning from an international flight to Mars. The crew of nine, captained by Neal Braddock USA (Michael Ironside) were on a five month mission. On board are Col. Andrei Kalsinov USSR (Damir Andrei), Major Kurt Steiner Germany (Tom Butler), Dr. Philippe Berdoux France (Leo Ilial), Olga Denerenko USSR (Cathie Shirriff), David Tremayne USA (Scot Denton), Dominica Mastrelli Italy (Alberta Watson), Guy Sterling Canada (Timothy Webber) and Pamela Cooper England (Kate Trotter).
They have been out of communication for nine weeks. Now three days out from Earth the space ship has reestablished communications. On Earth US Mission Control headed by Dr. Andrew McCallister (Wilford Brimley) and the Russian liaison Alexander Rostov (Martin Balsam) are anxious to hear what happened. A meteor shower knocked out communications and put them slightly off course but all on board are well. At lease for awhile.
When Russian cosmonaut Olga Denerenko, and wife of the new Russian leader Gregory Denerenko (Jan Rubes), is found dead, the cold war begins to reheat. Then when it is discovered that she was murdered and was two months pregnant things get worse. Comradery quickly falls apart when there are more murders. As the skeletons start falling out of the closet, affairs, homosexual liaisons and multiple liaisons are revealed.
“Murder In Space” was released in 1985 and was directed by Steven Hilliard Stern. It was an American/Canadian venture filmed in Canada. It is a science fiction murder mystery made for TV movie done for Showtime. The premier of the movie was shown without an ending. Viewers were encouraged to solve the mystery of who done it. As incentive there was $60,000 in cash and prizes up for grabs. It seems a ride on the Orient Express was one of them. The ending of the film was then shown several days later. The contestants were supposedly eliminated one by one until the person who correctly guessed the killer or killers and all the victims was left, if anyone. I believe the contest was held in several countries.
As for the movie, although a little contrived in spots, the film was entertaining. It’s like the game of Clue in space. Or an Old Dark House mystery on a spaceship. Everything gets wound up at the end just like Ellery Queen or Hercule Poirot would do only all the suspects aren’t assembled together in the library. There’s more fluff than murder but it was fun.
What does happen when someone is murdered in Space? It’s a complicated question. Legal jurisdiction already extends into space. It is part of the 1967 “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.” It specifies that whenever one of the nations that are a party to the treaty launches an object like a space craft, or space station, that nation has jurisdiction over it.
Things get a little more complicated when you are talking about an international space station with various nationalities on it. Especially if the killer and victim are of different nationalities. Article 22 of the “1998 Intergovernmental Agreement” states that on something like a space station the jurisdiction would be the country of the nationality of the offender. There are caveats when other nationalities or the space station itself may be in danger. Then everyone has a say on who prosecutes but usually it would end up the country of the nationality of the victim.
Then there are issues should someone be killed in actual space, like if someone was on a spacewalk and was murdered. Since space is not under any one nation’s sovereignty, (no one owns space), things get a little murky. There could be precedence similar to ships in international waters or Antarctica, which is not owned by any country. Of course now that space travel is being commercialized we will eventually have civilians in space. In that case it may be time to talk about Space Cops.