This Valentine’s Day why not give the gift of real estate and nothing says “I love you” like a piece of Mars, the RED planet. The X Files has been telling us for years that, “The truth is out there…” and the truth is the opportunity to buy a piece of the galaxy exists due to a cosmic loophole in a law.
Dennis Hope, “registered” ownership of Mars, the Moon, Venus and various other solar hot spots with the American and Russian governments, as well as the United Nations, in the 1980s.
How did he do it? Hope focused on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, a legally binding document in which UN members accepted that no government should ever own or exploit a moon or planet. What this treaty did not say, however, was that private individuals couldn’t take capitalism to the outer limits of outer space.
It was a big old “oops”, but the omission, one that the subsequent Moon Treaty attempted to redress on December 18, 1979 but failed allowed Mr. Hope to embrace yet another piece of legislation, the Homesteaders’ Act, passed by America during the 19th century. Upholding the ability for wilderness entrepreneurs to claim land without actually bothering to go there, simply investing from a distance. In this case 33.9 million miles (54.6 million kilometers) under the best conditions.
With the legal notices filed what was the outcome? No one disputed his claim, so Dennis Hope started selling land on the Moon and in the mid-1990s the internet meant he went international, and launched a company in 2000. To date, a quick Google search will find many opportunities to become the interplanetary Donald Trump.
That rambling estate in in Spain fulfills a desire even when the owner never visits, it is exotic, a status symbol and the deed makes it real. The same holds true for Mars. Imagine you owned a slice of it and could charge NASA for a parking space.