Who Owns the Moon NPR The Indicator Planet Money Podcast

Who Owns the Moon – NPR the Indicator Planet Money Podcast 8/18/21

Space travel is in the news lately, with individuals like Jeff Bezos going on rocket ships. With all that chatter, a decade-old question resurfaces again. Who owns the moon, the other planets, and space in general?

Christopher Lamar is the CEO of the Lunar Embassy. His father claimed the ownership of the moon and all of the solar system planets and Pluto four decades ago, using the space treaty from United Nations and the U.S. Homestead Act. Since then, millions of people bought stakes of the moon and other planets.

In addition to the Lunar Embassy, NASA is also getting involved in space ownership. The government agency signed contracts with space exploration companies to collect lunar “dirt” for a small amount of money. Journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian says NASA’s goal is to establish a precedent for property laws in space.