‘Houston, we have a problem’: the paucity and promise of an empirical space criminology

Space as a hyper-commercial and advanced technological domain as well as the expanse beyond heavenly bodies and their atmospheres, attract various crimes and harms. Space criminology should address criminological empirical gaps in the study of space crime and its control, forming a pioneering before-the-act empirical space criminology that comprises uncharted territory, as crimes in international waters, airspace and cyberspace once were. Unlike after-the-fact criminologies of maritime, aviation and cybercrime, space criminology could proactively study space crime. Space’s specific challenges of microgravity, radiation and the absence of Earth’s borders and enforcement leads to this article’s main question: how are criminologists supposed to do empirical work on space crime and its control, despite physical limitations and inaccessibility to space? To answer that questions, this article will explore the possibilities of using science fiction (hereafter sci-fi), astronaut analog missions, and Virtual Reality (VR) to set the agenda for an empirical space criminology.