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I'm not quite sure whether the question is correctly answered here or whether it belongs to Law Stack Exchange.
Assuming I can fly into space, more precisely to the moon and back again.
What laws forbid me to collect the American flag (regardless of its condition) or any other object of a space nation and bring it back to earth?
Would that be "simple" theft?
If the country is important because of its laws, I would like to know from the perspective of the USA, China and Germany.
How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Lunar Artifacts summarizes the 1967 Outer Space Treaty thusly:
These recommendations are consistent with international law, including the following: The 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty (OST), which provides, in part:
- That outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all states;
- That there should be freedom of scientific investigation in outer space;
- That outer space is not subject to national appropriation;
- That parties to the treaty retain jurisdiction and control over objects launched into outer space that are listed on their registries, while they are in outer space and that ownership of objects launched into outer space is not affected by their presence in outer space or by their return to Earth;
- That nations be guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance in lunar exploration and use, with due regard to the corresponding interests of other parties to the treaty; and That international consultations must take place prior to the commencement of an activity that any party has reason to believe would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other parties.
Article VIII of the treaty is the relevant portion here; this is the text:
So all parties to the OST agree that US flags on the moon remain the property of the United States government. These include the US, China, and Germany (as well as over 100 other nations).
Note that even if the 1967 treaty were not operative, you would not be able to successfully retrieve a US flag from an Apollo landing site and maintain ownership of it; the US government has many more lawyers than you do, and would likely deploy as many as needed to reclaim the flag.
Possession is 9/10 of the law. If you somehow get there and steal the flag, it's not like any Space Marines are going to jump out from behind a crater rim. Law needs to be enforceable.
Maintaining ownership of the flag is a different issue. You can kiss your chance of being free on US soil goodbye, especially if you're a citizen. Laws would be found, made up, or stretched so that you could be incarcerated and the flag seized--although since the flag is US property, you could just be charged with theft on the order of the millions (or billions) of dollars of effort that the flag represents or the equally astronomical cost that the flag represents in launch costs.
Now, if you're not a citizen or request asylum from a US-hostile superpower, you might be able to live out your days in political asylum in a Snowden-esque situation but realistically today's superpowers wouldn't want to stir up animosity and offer asylum to someone who stole this piece of human history. Id wager the only "safe" places would be countries which are actively hostile towards the USA (like NK), and even then, they'd probably simply ransom you and the flag to the USA for political concessions.
It may be that if your country is in a war with the USA, you may claim the flag as a war trophy. If your army manages to defeat the US, they may as well accept the loss of this particular flag.
Otherwise, it is property of the US government.
Both the US government (as stated by NASA) and the general public considers it a rather valuable asset.
In most jurisdictions, leaving something somewhere that is your property doesn't stop it from being your property. There are few exceptions and the law may or may not provide you with a practical means of defending your property, but in the general case one can expect to find their car where they have parked it overnight. Well, almost always.
The Outer Space Treaty just explicitly extends this basic understanding of property to space.
There are similar situations on Earth where objects were taken and the original owners have been unable to get them back, such as the The Parthenon Marbles (also known as the Elgin Marbles).
So while the law may make it technically theft once you have it and put it on display the United States may find it difficult to get back. Many countries are unwilling to get involved in that kind of dispute because they themselves have a lot of stuff that others could lay legitimate claim to, so for example extradition or local legal redress may be tricky.
Yes, it would be simple theft.
In most countries whose laws are related to those here in the UK, there can be no thing which doesn't have an owner, and taking that thing without permission constitutes theft.
Trying to identify the owner is quite different.
Trying to enforce the law is also quite different.
Neither alters the fact that if it's a thing, it has an owner. That NASA left the flag hanging about the moon doesn't stop it being NASA's property.
