Moon Real Estate

According to BBC, Dennis Hope is the head of the Lunar Embassy, which since 1980, has sold acres of lunar real estate for $19.99 an acre. Since then, he has raked over $9 million dollars from the 4.25 million people who have purchased a piece of the moon. People and celebrities alike, from people such as Barbara Walters, George Lucas, Ronald Reagan, and even the first President Bush have purchased estate on the moon.

In 1967, the United Nations Outer Space Treaty clearly prohibited nations from owning the moon, but the law didn't say anything about individuals. This is where Hope has exploited the loophole in the treaty to his own advantageous reasons, claiming that there are no standardized rules for private citizens to make claims on land. In defense of his lunar estate business, he says that 197 countries at one point in history had a basis by which private citizens could make claims on land and not make payment.

This controversy over who owns the moon is beginning to heat up as countries such as Japan and the United States are drawing up plans for moon colonies. In the future, it is certain that lunar property ownership will spark much conflict. Many people believe that Hope's defense for his actions on the moon will not hold for much longer. The moon is a common property of the international community, so nobody can own it, including individuals and states. This is clearly established in the U.N. treaty which states that "Individuals' rights cannot prevail over the rights and obligations of a state."

Ram Jakhu, a law professor at the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University in Toronto, as well as the director of the International Institute for Space Law, believes that people like Hope have misread the treaty and have come to exploit it for their own reasons. He believes that the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty was created for the sole purpose for blocking property claims in outer space. The impending conflict that is slowly emerging, is cause for entrepreneurs like Hope to stop their sell of lunar estate property. Jakhu believes that historically, "The ownership of private property has been a significant cause of war. If someone owns the moon, then there is cause to go to war over the moon. No one owns the moon. No one can own any property in outer space."

But even through all this criticism, Hope refuses to back down from his profitable business. Currently, he owns about 95 different planetary bodies, totaling up to about 7 trillion acres of land, which value has a grand total of $100 trillion. This total doesn't even include the mineral rights on these planetary bodies!

Nick Davidson. "Making a mint out of the Moon." BBC Horizon. http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6533169.stm