Debate Rages On Lunar Land Sales
Meanwhile, sales figures grow as
customers, space law experts, debate extraterrestrial property
rights
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com
More than 2.5 million people from 180
countries have bought property on the Moon and Mars in sales that
reached $1 million last year. The scheme is bogus, legal scholars
argue, but business is booming and futurists have been forced to
ponder the fate of celestial property rights.
Meanwhile, the "Head
Cheese" of the whole shebang asserted last week that his
Galactic Government flag will be planted on the Moon by the end of
this year.
The pronouncements are bold. The
revenue is real. And a lunar land grab -- however dubious it may
be -- is well underway.
Most of the buyers are individuals
who are convinced that $19.99 plus shipping and handling will
secure them a building site on another world. Some 1,300
corporations, many hoping for otherworldly tax status, are also
said to be among the clients. Sales of Martian real estate have
recently begun and other worlds are also available.
Analysts who say the sales are not on
solid legal footing also think it all foretells court battles that
loom in the cosmic frontier, especially now that U.S. President
George W. Bush says we "human beings are headed into the
cosmos."
It's also the sort of thing that
could lead to the first cosmic warfare.
Big money
The out-of-this-world commerce is
conducted mostly over the Internet and orchestrated chiefly by one
company, Lunar Embassy (lunarembassy.com),
whose founder insists he owns the Moon and all the planets in the
solar system except Earth.
The claim is considered absurd by
several legal analysts, who say a 1967 international treaty
forbids ownership of property beyond Earth.
"You should not expect to have
paid for any valid legal title to a plot in outer space, just for
a nice piece of paper to stick on your wall," says Frans von
der Dunk, a space law expert at Leiden University in The
Netherlands.
Lunar Embassy's founder, Dennis Hope,
asserts he's on firm legal ground -- regardless of the world in
question. He spent $70,000 last year in legal fees to defend his
company and chase off competition that he calls copycats.
According to other news reports, competing web sites have been
forced to shut down based on copyright violations, not directly
because of property ownership claims.
"We're not trying to fool
anybody about anything," Hope said. "The properties we
sell are as legitimate as any property you buy anywhere on this
planet."
At least two competitors disagree.
Lunar Registry (lunarregistry.com)
does not claim to own the Moon. And it says it is "aware that
some companies are lying to consumers about their legal rights to
sell property on the Moon." Yet Lunar Registry has "a
program through which you, your family, or your business
enterprise can legally claim ownership of property on the
Moon." Proceeds will be pooled "in order to create the
investment capital required to occupy and develop the Moon."
Another outfit, called Buyuranus.com,
takes a potty-humor approach to selling parcels of the outer
planet with the arguably unfortunate name. The enterprise is
serious, however, about accepting your credit card.
Plant the flag
In a telephone interview last week,
Hope, the self-proclaimed Head Cheese of the Lunar Embassy,
revealed his latest plan to attempt to secure extraterrestrial
ownership. The flags of his Lunar Embassy and his nascent Galactic
Government will be planted on the Moon by the end of 2004, he
said.
"We believe it will change the
history of this world," Hope said. "Sometime this year,
the Lunar Embassy will be on the Moon. Our representative will
then turn to a video camera and read a prepared statement
validating our claim of ownership."
There are no known manned missions
currently planned to reach the Moon this year or anytime soon.
Other space experts expressed serious doubt any such mission would
occur. So I asked Hope what spacecraft his company would employ.
"I'm not at liberty to discuss
the technical aspects of the craft at this point," he said.
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Seeds of cosmic commerce
The idea for selling lunar property
came to Dennis Hope in 1980. He recalled the 1967 United Nations
(news - web sites) Outer Space Treaty, which stipulates that no
government can own extraterrestrial property. But as Hope says,
"it neglected to mention individuals or corporations."
He used that loophole, as he calls
it, to snap up to the Moon and the eight other planets and their
natural satellites in 1980.
Hope filed papers with a "U.S.
governmental office for claim registries" in San
Francisco. He then informed the General Assembly of the United
Nations and the governments of Russian and the United States. None
responded, and Hope takes that as proof his claim is valid. He
followed up with a U.S. copyright registration.
Hope also cites the U.S. Homestead
Act of 1862, which through 1986 allowed an individual to claim
property by occupying and improving it. Yet in some countries,
Hope contends, not even occupation is necessary to homestead some
land.
"With the chaotic aspect of
rules, he said, "we just created our own rules."
Raging discussion
Von der Dunk, the Leiden University
law expert, is also co-director of the International Institute of
Space Law (IISL). He said a "discussion is raging"
within the IISL as well as the International Astronautical
Federation over how to handle claims like Lunar Embassy's.
To clarify the 1967 UN treaty, the
IISL is working to establish explicit international legal language
that would render "null and void" any ownership claim of
a celestial body. That document is due out later this year. The
language, other scholars say, represents what many think is
already codified into international law by years of
interpretations of the 1967 treaty.
So legally, where does that leave the
sale of extraterrestrial property?
"Whether that means it's fraud
and such a claim is null and void under national law, would
basically be up to any national legal system to determine,"
von der Dunk said. "It does mean, however, that under
international law the U.S. government should unequivocally make
clear that these practices are not based on any sound legal
premise."
Hope alternately deflects criticism
and defends himself vigorously. He says what might sound like
anger -- he speaks heatedly about his critics -- is actually just
enthusiasm. In the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the Lunar
Embassy web site, the first question is, "How do I know this
is not a fraud?"
Elsewhere in the FAQ, and on the
printed deed a customer receives, Lunar Embassy employs the word
"novel" to describe its products. The word was suggest
by lawyers 24 years ago, according to the FAQ, to "help avoid
any frivolous lawsuits from a foreign country."
(The words "novel" and
"novelty" are employed by star-naming businesses as a
way to avoid the impression that their sales involve official
products.)
Hope brushed off a question about the
employment of "novel" as a form of legal defense.
"It's just a word," he said, delving into its dictionary
definition as describing something new and unusual.
'Wonderfully profitable'
One thing no one argues about is that
Lunar Embassy has developed into a "wonderfully profitable
program," as the company's promotional materials state in
seeking "ambassadors" to serve as sales agents in other
countries.
Every day hundreds of people fork
over about $30 for 1-acre slices of the Moon and Mars. (Prices are
going up: For roughly the same amount, prior to 2001, you could
get 17,700 acres.) The cost includes shipping and handling of a
deed, a map, and the lunar or Martian "Constitution and Bill
of Rights," all printed on simulated parchment.
With the help of several affiliated
web sites around the world, Lunar Embassy has over the years sold
410 million acres on the Moon -- a fraction of what's available.
Some 1,500 lunar acres are bought each day, Hope said, many in 2-
or 3-acre parcels. Revenue is nearly double what it was in 2000.
Business has picked up
"tremendously" of late, as it typically does when there
are high-profile space missions like the rovers now on Mars.
Charging for sunlight
In a crafty stunt designed to
"expose the phony extraterrestrial real estate
industry," British legal scholar Virgiliu Pop declared in
2001 that he owns the Sun and can charge the "owners" of
other solar system bodies for the solar energy they receive.
Pop has written several papers on
space property rights and is a member of the IISL.
"The Lunar Embassy does not own
the Moon, hence it cannot sell it," Pop said in an e-mail
interview. "If you still believe you can actually own the
Moon by buying it from the Lunar Embassy, then you will have to
pay me utilities fees for the Sun that I own as much (or as
little) as Mr. Hope owns the Moon."
One precedent Pop draws on involves
the Masai tribe in Africa, which "has a similar legal claim
over all the cows in the world, yet in reality, people all over
the world continue to buy and sell cattle without involving the
Masai. What I dispute here is the 'it is mine because I say so'
approach."
A cornerstone of Lunar Embassy's
claims -- the absence of governmental protest -- is irrelevant,
Pop argues, because no protest or response was to be expected
"with such trivial claim" in light of accepted
international law.
Pop further contends that Dennis
Hope's quest, which began in 1980, came too late. "A lunar
claim was lodged in Chile back in 1953," Pop says, "and
a Declaration of Lunar Ownership was issued by the city of Geneva,
Ohio, back in 1966."
So why don't governments put a stop
to all this?
"Perhaps -- and this is my
opinion, not the government's -- this is because the government is
concerned right now with more important issues," Pop said.
"Yet, I hope one day the government will pay attention to the
Lunar Embassy's antics."
Moon squatting
Hope has no patience with legal
opinion.
If other disagree with his
justifications, "that's their decision," he said.
"I don't care."
Meanwhile, his plan to counter other
claims, past or present, is to squat. By sending an emissary to
the Moon, he figures to solidify his ownership rights. When I
expressed doubt about his ability to put someone on the lunar
surface this year, he said: "If we don't do it, then
everything I told you is fabricated." He quickly backtracked.
"It isn't fabricated," he said, but rather it would just
mean there had been a technical problem.
Assuming Lunar Embassy succeeds at
putting people on the Moon at some point, governments would surely
take notice. Conversely, if President Bush's new space vision
leads to the United States setting up a lunar base, as planned,
that base would inevitably sit on land that the Lunar Embassy
claims to own. What would Hope do?
He said he is "in the process of
setting up talks with Bush" to lease to the government 30,000
lunar acres for 200 years.
Hope is crafty about stating things
in a manner that lends credibility to his cause. On his web site,
for example, he writes that "the Lunar Embassy entered into a
contractual agreement with TransOrbital Inc., to carry our
Declaration of Ownership to the Moon along with their
mission."
The TransOrbital mission, called
Trailblazer, in fact is selling space for documents to anyone with
a credit card. TransOrbital's President, Dennis Laurie, said Lunar
Embassy has no special arrangement beyond what you, I or anyone
can easily make by filling out a form on the TransOrbital web site
(transorbital.net).
The Trailblazer mission will not
carry humans.
Looming clash?
Short of going to war with the rest
of the world, Lunar Embassy's squatting plans might not work,
according to Sa'id Mosteshar, a space law expert and principal
partner in the law firm Mosteshar Mackenzie, based in San Diego,
California.
Mosteshar says no individual can
claim ownership of any piece of space -- or Earth -- without the
support of a nation to defend that right. And, since the 1967 UN
treaty forbade nations from owning any piece of space, the law
simply does not support Lunar Embassy's plans.
Lunar Embassy does not plan to work
entirely within terrestrial law anyway.
Hope recently formed a Galactic
Government (he is its president) designed to create laws for
societies that will eventually colonize the Moon and planets. A
vote on these laws is to be held soon, he said.
If Hope or other members of the
Galactic Government try to settle the Moon, "we can only
assess the effectiveness of that kind of move by reference to our
own system of law," Mosteshar said. "He would have to
fight for his rights. Such rights as he might claim would not be
recognized here on Earth."
In essence, any person or entity
trying to physically settle and govern the Moon could start the
first space war, if any government or coalition of nations back
home decided to challenge the move.
Projecting fantasy
In the end, most legal experts and
space policy analysts are confident, buyers of Lunar Embassy plots
-- or their heirs -- will get nothing.
Yet what appears to be an ultimately
inevitable argument is in its nascent stages, fueled both by
Dennis Hope and by President Bush's recently announced plan to set
up a permanent Moon base and then send people to Mars.
After all, can the nations of Earth
really govern the heavens? And how might current law change when
people actually get out there? Might individuals one day purchase
suburban land beyond Earth in a legally undisputed manner? And if
so, what entity or entities will recognize and protect their
title?
Steve Durst is hedging his bets. He's
got four deeds to lunar property bought from different sellers. He
picked up his first one "with a chuckle" in Berkeley in
1970 from "a woman dressed in a silver Moon suit."
As director of the Lunar Enterprise
Corporation and editor of Space Age Publishing, Durst does not
really think any of the deeds are valid. But he is a "great
believer" in the right of individuals to own property on the
Moon.
"I see them mostly as novelties,
but symbolic novelties" he said.
Durst respects Dennis Hope for his
marketing prowess and for "doing a great service to the
process of space education and commerce and the legal question it
raises." Durst also likes Hope as a person, but he does not
agree that Hope owns the Moon or other planets. Nor does he
believe Lunar Embassy will put a person on the lunar surface this
year.
"If he's really convinced
himself to a high degree that he owns the Moon, then that fantasy
probably projects itself into other things" like getting a
person on the Moon, Durst told me, adding that perhaps that bold
expectation is "no more outlandish than saying he owns the
Moon."
Black eye
Durst is one of many analysts who
think the need for serious discussions about extraterrestrial
property rights is growing urgent.
"The concept of property rights
in space is important," said Brain Chase, executive director
of the National Space Society, which supports the privatization of
space exploration. "As we start to settle the solar system
the property rights issue is a critical debate we're going to have
to have."
That's not to say Chase is
enthusiastic about having a Head Cheese fuel the discussion.
"I'm not sure the Lunar Embassy
is the right ambassador for the job," Chase said. He worries
that the company's sales of celestial property may give the whole
effort to expand space exploration "more of a black eye than
anything else."
This article is
part of SPACE.com's weekly Mystery Monday series.
SOURCES: Emediawire,
Toronto
Star, Novinite, London
Free Press (Canada)
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