Space Policy 17 (2001) 195–203 The men who sold the Moon: science fiction or legal nonsense? Virgiliu Pop* Faculty of Law, University of Glasgow, Stair Building, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Abstract Previously the exclusive domain of science-fiction novels, the sale of extraterrestrial real estate has nowadays become a favourite feature of tabloid reports. This article critically analyses and dismantles with legal arguments the issue of the sale of extraterrestrial land, after having outlined some of the trivial claims of ownership of celestial bodies. From Dennis Hope’s lunar claim to the alleged Martian trespass by NASA’s Pathfinder, the only consequence these claims have on the legal plane is to highlight the need for better regulation of extraterrestrial landed property rights. r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Extraterrestrial real estate; Extraterrestrial landed property rights ‘‘Giving a land claim on Mars is truly a unique way to say ‘I Love You’, ‘Happy Birthday’, (...) or even ‘Thank You’.’’ The Martian Consulate, L.L.C. [1] 1. The science fiction Until recently extraterrestrial real estate seems to have been the undisputed domain of science-fiction. In 1950 Robert A. Heinlein published The Man who Sold the Moon [2], a story whose main character, Delos D. Harriman gains control over Earth’s natural satellite- Fusing the cujus est solum 1 doctrineFthrough buying all of the land on earth that the Moon rotates over. Eight years later, Isaac Asimov told us to Buy Jupiter [3]. In 1961 Heinlein published Stranger in a Strange Land [4], where a fictional High Court decision, General Atomics vs. Larkin et al., recognises ownership of the Moon by the actual individuals who maintained occupation. The 1964 novel by Philip K. Dick, Martian Time-Slip, [5] is centred on a Martian real estate affair, like Ben Bova’s 1999 Return to Mars, [6] where the Red Planet is claimed by the Navajo Nation. In 1968 Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, the creators of 2001: A Space Odyssey, calculated in a wonderful sample of astro-demographic mathematics that: Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth y . [B]y a curious coincidence there are approxi- mately a hundred billion stars in y the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a y sun y . And many y of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heavenFor hell [7]. Nowadays, however, claims of extraterrestrial real estate ownership are no longer the exclusive subject of science-fiction books; instead, growing numbers of people are either claimingFor buying from the claimantsFland plots on other worlds, activities which, I will argue have no legal validity. 2. The factual nonsense 2.1. Slicing the pie in the sky There may have been enough planets in the Milky Way for each human being in 1968, but one company claims to have owned them all since April *Tel.: +44-079-80063585; fax: +44-0870-122-5843. E-mail address: virgiliu pop@yahoo.com (V. Pop). 1 Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coeli: The owner of the land owns it up to the heavens. 0265-9646/01/$ - see front matter r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0265-9646(01)00023-6