Ingot Tree

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Read an excerpt from this book here.

Needless to say, interesting legal issues of ownership and selling something you don't own arises. From wikipedia:

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In these early stages of speculation about ownership of extra-terrestrial real estate, the legal issues are still extremely vague. One of the underlying issues is whether private ownership of such property is recognised or not. It is generally accepted that, as stated by the United Nations "Outer Space Treaty", space is the "domain of all mankind", and can no longer be claimed by any governments. It omits mentioning private individuals.

Legal experts agree that private ownership of the Moon is not explicitly forbidden in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 which states that only governments are not allowed to own lunar or celestial property. The Outer Space Treaty has been ratified by 157 countries as well as all space faring nations.

Because private ownership was not included in the Outer Space Treaty, a new treaty, the Moon Treaty of 1982 attempted to explicitly fix this omission by forbidding private ownership of the Moon and the celestial bodies. However the Moon Treaty has not been signed after 3 attempts in the UN, nor has it been signed or ratified by the United States or any other major or space faring nation for fear that private exploitation of the Moon and its resources would be hampered by the treaty.

The legal issues partly depend on which is being discussed:

• Land ownership on planets and moons
• Ownership of vacant space

Aware of the need for a stricter approach, the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Space Law (the learned society of space lawyers) issued a Statement in 2004 where it deplored the augmentation in the extraterrestrial real estate business “raising the opportunity for individuals to be misled”.

The statement reads, inter alia – “The prohibition of national appropriation [of outer space and celestial bodies] … precludes the application of any national legislation on a territorial basis to validate a ‘private claim’. Hence, it is not sufficient for sellers of lunar deeds to point to national law, or the silence of national authorities, to justify their ostensible claims. The sellers of such deeds are unable to acquire legal title to their claims. Accordingly, the deeds they sell have no legal value or significance, and convey no recognized rights whatsoever.”

The Board of Directors of the IISL calls State Parties to the Outer Space Treaty to – “comply with their obligations under … the Outer Space Treaty …[being] under a duty to ensure that, in their legal systems, transactions regarding claims to property rights to the Moon and other celestial bodies or parts thereof, have no legal significance or recognised legal effect.”

While space lawyers consider the purported sale of extraterrestrial real estate a trivial matter, pertaining to consumer protection law, most of them agree that the subject of real property rights in outer space needs to be clarified. Among the specialists in the field of extraterrestrial property rights are Wayne J. White Jr., Virgiliu Pop, Alan Wasser and Alexander Soucek of ESA.

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Here's what Virgiliu Pop has to say:

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Land on the Moon for sale? Think twice!


For eons, the Moon has been the symbol of supreme desire. Asking for the Moon meant asking for the impossible. Owning the Moon and the stars was both the ultimate want and the ultimate folly. And, proven that a fool and his money are easily parted, there ought to arise people who would readily exploit this weakness. With or without material aims, many people throughout the ages thought they were the first ones to embed the flag of their desire on the alien orbs. As the Moon waxes and wanes above them and their unreal estate businesses, this book chronicles their way from anonymity to fame and back again.

"[Unreal Estate] is both a welcome documentation of the latest step in humankind's long history of land schemes and an entertaining look at our place in space. ... I look forward to first conviction for fraud on Mars -- then we will know humankind is truly expanding into the solar system. " - Louis Friedman, Founder and Executive Director, The Planetary Society.

"Virgiliu has done stellar research on this topic and his book is extremely informative and interesting. You will find the stories he tells to be compelling, the legal arguments as to why one cannot own space real estate to be illuminating, and the entire book to be not only unique but very special." - Dr. David M. Livingston, Founder and Host of The Space Show .

"Who could be cooler than a space lawyer named Pop? ... If Virgil's fascinating stories and characters from the annals of space property claims were the issues, I might never have fallen asleep during property class in law school ... Pour yourself a chilled snake oil cocktail and dig in." - Jesse Londin, Space Law Probe.

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