Buying Land on the Moon

[Ryan Albright]

http://www.LunarLandOwner.com

My best friend and I were online last night looking for gifts to buy for our roomates and friends for christmas. We came acroos lunarlandowner.com and we looked around their website for a little. Now they are offering one acre of land on the moon for $29.95. Supposedly when you buy it you get a deed and everything. Now i was kind of curious so if we own that piece of land on the moon, and in the future if we ever let tourist to the moon or ever live on the moon wont that acre of land sky rocket? Now my question is what is the legality of selling property on the moon? Can someone actually do that? Can i acutally own a acre of the moon or is this total BS.?

What are your thoughts?
Dave any thoughts?

[Max Lobovsky]

That is obviously a joke, but that would make a kind of funny gift. (Maybe not $30 funny...)

[Ryan Albright]

Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky

That is obviously a joke, but that would make a kind of funny gift. (Maybe not $30 funny...)

Let me add to my post i am not thinking about buying it, just curious. Thats why i brought it before you guys the CD community

[Kyle Love]

FINALLY we know what to buy for someone who has everything! haha

[shyra1353]

What if they oversell the space of the moon? Or an acre that you buy is unusable for whatever reason? Is an acre in the centre of a crater worth more than an acre not there? What about the part where Neil Armstrong first stepped on? Is that section worth more than others? Can you pick your acre on the moon?

[tkwetzel]

From www.lunarlandowner.com:

Each package contains the deed for one acre of land and it lists the actual location of the property by quadrant, latitude and longitude. A lunar map accompanies this, marked with an X showing the location of the property. This American company’s spacecraft is very first COMMERCIAL mission to the Moon.

It states that they give you a specific spot and they also say elsewhere on the site that they are the only company that can legally sell land on the moon. Kind of sketchy, but not sure if it is a joke or not.

[Cory]

It has to be a joke... Nobody owns the moon, or space, so nobody can sell land on the moon.

It's like those "Buy a Star" things.

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by Cory

It's like those "Buy a Star" things.

My parents actually bought a start for me when I was born. I've got the charts and papers and everything in a packet in the downstairs closet somewhere. I plan to set up shop there someday.

[MissInformation]

This means that the next time I demand... er... ask for the moon and the stars, there's no reason I should not receive it!

I wonder what other intangible gifts there are out there... I've heard there's some prime real estate in Hades, and they'll throw in a free hand basket to get you there...

Heidi

[KarenH]

As I recall, when our American astronauts landed on the moon, they left a U.S. flag there. That used to mean that a country was claiming the land; symbolically, it seems to me to imply the same thing these days, too. So is someone telling me the U.S. doesn't own the moon? Who says? Who does the U.N. think it is, anyway, and whoever does what it says? And who gave the U.N. authority to do anything?

[Adam Y.]

As I recall, when our American astronauts landed on the moon, they left a U.S. flag there. That used to mean that a country was claiming the land; symbolically, it seems to me to imply the same thing these days, too. So is someone telling me the U.S. doesn't own the moon? Who says? Who does the U.N. think it is, anyway, and whoever does what it says? And who gave the U.N. authority to do anything?

Actually it's a treaty and a treaty implies that all the countries actcually agreed to this. Also, buying land on the moons is just as valid as claiming the sun and charging everyone for sunlight. Of course someone has actually done this. Not to mention he isn't even the first crackpot that claimed he owned the moon.

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."

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.)

Space article

[Mike]

Originally Posted by KarenH

And who gave the U.N. authority to do anything?

Reminds me of that Chappelle Show

"Come on UN, stop me! Stop me with your great army!"
or something like that

[Jeff Rodriguez]

I'd rather buy some land on Mars. Can you help us out Dave?

[Matt Leese]

I wouldn't call it a joke, it's more of a novelty.

In general, no one owns the moon. Hence, no one can sell the moon. While some companies have made claims to the moon, legally, they have little ground to stand on. So if you like the novelty idea of it, go for it. It's rather similiar to the idea that you can buy the name of a star.

Matt

[EddieMcD]

Sure, you could buy a piece of the moon, and it'd be legally yours... at least until someone actually lands in your spot and sets up shop. It worked the exact same way back in the late 16th-early 18th centuries with land in North America (and again in the 19th century when the US was in its expansion era). A person could easily buy a large amount of land on the Ohio River, but unless they could back it up, their deed was worth about as much as the paper it was written on.

Long story short: if you buy a piece of the moon, be prepared to build your own rocket to get there and back it up. Reminds me of a friend who had three Plutos FedEx'd to him overnight...