"The idea is to use the resources in space to build a space infrastructure," says Dr. And that's good for asteroid prospectors and miners, because asteroids hold valuable minerals and elements, like nickel, iron, cobalt, water, and nitrogen. The name says it all: Their orbits bring them nearer to Earth than other celestial objects. That may have been a plan in 1980 but it's slowly becoming reality.Įstimates vary, but we know of the existence of about 17,000, or possibly 20,000, near-Earth asteroids, according to NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and NEOWISE projects. Hope is not even alone in his quest for sovereign status - there's Asgardia, too, a "fully-fledged, independent space nation." And there are now numerous companies, rather than just states, who would rather like to mine the moon and asteroids for their minerals. And I have never heard from them."īut in the 30 years since, the space industries have changed. "I also asked them to let me know if they had a legal problem with that. "So I wrote a declaration of ownership for the moon and the other eight planets and their moons, because Pluto was still a planet back then, explained my intent was to subdivide and sell the property to anybody who wanted it, and sent the statement to the United Nations," says Hope.
#Lunark ambacy skin#
Because the one thing the treaty failed to even forsee was a time when commercial operations and individuals, such as Dennis Hope, would want to put some skin in the game.Īnd that was a loophole through which Hope intended to fly a rocket. The treaty has been less successful there. For instance, it hasn't stopped states deploying a bunch of spy satellites. But let's park that for now. certainly if you're sloppy about your interpretation of Article 4, which theoretically prohibits any military use of space. Its purpose was to ensure that the first space race remained peaceful, and it did that. And President Donald Trump reminded us of the fact earlier this year.īut the Outer Space Treaty was designed for the Cold War and is a legacy of that era. "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."Īrticle 2 prohibited the United States and Soviet Union from planting their respective flags in space - until of course the US did just that during the Apollo 11 mission when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Hope's second thought landed on the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty in which Article 2 states: That's a mere 0.074 times the size of Earth, but it's enough to get started with. NASA puts the moon's surface area at 14,647,439.75 square miles (37,936,694.80 square kilometers). But while driving down a street one day in Concord, California, he looked out the car window, saw the moon, and thought, "There's a lot of property." Image: He says he wanted to buy a bit of real estate, mortgage part of the property, and then move to Los Angeles to become an actor. And if it wasn't for the fact that most business is a confidence trick of some sort, I'd be tempted to suggest Hope came up with the greatest con of all time. Hope was going through a divorce, hadn't worked in a year and was almost out of cash. So we created the Galactic Government."Īll this started in November 1980. "And after due consideration, the only answer we could come up with was that we needed to form a democratic republic government. "In 2001, I had 163,000 emails from different customers around the world that wanted to know how on Earth we were ever going to protect the properties that the Lunar Embassy was selling," says Hope.
And they intend to defend and ultimately profit from them. That's right: Hope and his customers (or are they followers?) own all the planetary bodies in our solar system. Hope to tell you who he thinks owns space, he'll answer with a simple: "I do!" At least he appears that way over a shaky cellphone line from Nevada to Bonn, Germany. The "Head Cheese" of the Lunar Embassy is a clear-thinking, straight-shooting kind of guy.
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