US company plans to sell land on the moon
Found on PhysOrg on Wednesday, 19 October 2005
A US company has set up operations in China to sell land on the moon for 289 yuan (37 dollars) an acre, cashing in on renewed interest in space travel after the successful five-day voyage of Shenzhou VI.
The so-called Lunar Embassy, touted as the first extraterrestrial estate agency, started operations Wednesday in Beijing, the China Daily reported.
Lunar Embassy was set up by US entrepreneur Dennis Hope in 1980, 11 years after the Apollo II mission first landed people on the moon.
Hope believes a loophole in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty makes his property sales legitimate. The agreement forbids governments from owning extraterrestrial property but fails to mention corporations or individuals.
Who gave the moon to Dennis Hope in the first place? I always thought that you can't sell something you don't own. You can't simply sell the moon when it doesn't belong to you. Now some might think that the moon is US territory, because americans landed there first: but this still doesn't make Dennis Hope the owner. Besides, that would mean that Russia owns space, because they had the first man in orbit. So, the US would own the moon, but would have to pay Russia to fly through their space.