In 1980, Dennis Hope sent a letter to the UN claiming ownership of the Moon. They never replied. He took the silence as acceptance and started selling — and has since made millions. Here's how to buy your piece, and why the underlying legal question is now more serious than it looks.
In 1980, Dennis Hope sent a letter to the UN claiming ownership of the Moon. They never replied. He took the silence as acceptance and started selling — and has since made millions. Here’s how to buy your piece, and why the underlying legal question is now more serious than it looks.
In 1980, a recently divorced, financially struggling former car salesman from California looked up at the moon through his car window and had a thought that would change his life: “There’s a load of property up there — who owns it?”
That man was Dennis Hope. He checked the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — the international agreement governing space — and noticed something interesting. The treaty forbids countries from claiming sovereignty over the moon. It says nothing explicit about individuals. So Dennis Hope did what any reasonable person would do: he sent a letter to the United Nations claiming ownership of the moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and several other bodies in the solar system. The UN never replied. Hope interpreted the silence as acceptance. And then he started selling.
More than four decades later, the Lunar Embassy Corporation has sold over 611 million acres of lunar land to more than six million customers in over 180 countries. Former US presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan are among the alleged buyers. So are hundreds of celebrities. One acre of moon costs $34.99. You can buy all of Pluto for $250,000.
“Dennis Hope sent a letter to the UN claiming ownership of the Moon. The UN never replied. He interpreted the silence as acceptance. Then he started selling — and made millions.”
The Legal Framework — Why This Is Complicated
The Outer Space Treaty was signed on October 10, 1967, based on the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space. It has been signed and ratified by 114 countries, with another 23 signatories who have not yet ratified it.
The treaty’s key provision on property is Article II: “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.”
The treaty prohibits national appropriation. It does not explicitly prohibit individual or corporate claims. This is the loophole — large enough, as Hope has put it, “to fly a rocket through.” Legal experts are divided on whether this loophole is genuine or whether it represents a fundamental misreading of the treaty’s intent. The consensus view among space law scholars is that the treaty was intended to prohibit all claims of sovereignty, not just state claims. But the treaty has never been tested in court on this specific question.
The Moon Agreement of 1979 attempted to close the loophole by explicitly prohibiting private ownership of lunar resources. It failed — the major spacefaring nations including the US, Russia, and China declined to ratify it. As of 2026, only 18 countries have ratified the Moon Agreement, and none of them are significant space powers. The loophole that Dennis Hope spotted in 1980 remains, technically, open.
“Legal experts say you can’t own the moon. Dennis Hope says you can. The courts have never been asked to decide. And in the meantime, he has sold 611 million acres.”
Current Prices — What You Can Buy in 2026
The prices have increased since the original article was written in 2019 — an acre was $24.99 then, it is $34.99 now. Mars, Venus, and Mercury are available at similar prices per acre. You can also pay a premium for a plot near where Chandrayaan-3, India’s lunar lander, touched down in August 2023 — location matters even on the moon, apparently. Domain names with suffixes like .moon and .mars are also available for purchase.
How to Buy Land on the Moon — Step by Step
The process is genuinely straightforward, which is either reassuring or alarming depending on how you think about it:
- Visit the Lunar Embassy Corporation website
- Click “Buy Moon Land” from the top menu
- Choose your plot size — from 1 acre ($34.99) to 20 acres ($604.80)
- Optionally add your name to the deed for $2.50 (up to 45 characters including spaces)
- Check out via PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, or American Express
- Receive a certificate printed on 11×14 inch simulated parchment paper indicating the precise location of your lunar property
Dennis Hope selects which plots to sell by closing his eyes and pointing randomly at a lunar map. The selected area is then coloured red to indicate it is no longer available. This is a real process. Over 611 million acres have been allocated this way.
Former US presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan have all allegedly purchased lunar property through the Lunar Embassy. So have nearly 700 celebrities. One buyer reportedly paid $250,000 for a “country-sized” plot of 2.66 million acres. The Lunar Embassy does not sell property near historical landmarks — the Apollo landing sites are protected, even in the most unofficial sense imaginable.
Is This a Gift or a Gimmick?
The honest answer is: both. Lunar Embassy certificates make genuinely entertaining and memorable gifts — they come printed on parchment paper, suitable for framing, with the buyer’s name and coordinates. People have hung them on their walls, given them as wedding gifts, and used them as novelty office decorations. For the price of a nice dinner, you can own a piece of the moon. The emotional value — the ability to point at the sky and say “I own some of that” — is real, even if the legal value is not.
Whether the purchase constitutes any form of genuine legal ownership is essentially meaningless in practice. No court has been asked to adjudicate Dennis Hope’s claim. No government has moved to shut him down. The UN has never formally responded to his original letter. And until humans are actually living on the moon and fighting over property rights — which may be closer than it once seemed — the question of whether your deed is legally valid will remain entirely academic.
The Real Space Property Question — Why It Matters in 2026
Beneath the entertainment value of Dennis Hope’s operation lies a genuinely serious question that is becoming more urgent. NASA’s Artemis programme is working toward returning humans to the moon. China has announced plans for a crewed lunar base. SpaceX and other private companies are developing lunar transportation. And the moon contains resources — most notably helium-3, a potential fusion fuel, and water ice near the poles — that have real commercial value.
The question of who can own or exploit those resources is unresolved under international law. The US Space Act of 2015 was a landmark step — it granted US citizens and companies the right to own and sell resources they extract from celestial bodies, without claiming sovereignty over the body itself. Luxembourg passed similar legislation in 2017. The UAE, Japan, and others have followed. The legal framework for commercial space resource extraction is being built piece by piece.
What this means is that the question Dennis Hope asked in 1980 — who owns the moon? — is no longer merely philosophical. Within the next decade, companies will be drilling for water ice on the lunar poles and mining helium-3 from the regolith. The legal architecture for determining who owns what they extract — and who has the right to operate where — will matter enormously. The Outer Space Treaty, written in 1967 to prevent Cold War militarisation of space, was never designed to answer those questions.
Dennis Hope’s Lunar Embassy certificates are novelty items. But the underlying question they raise is one of the most important unresolved issues in international law. The moon is becoming real estate — not in the way Hope imagined, but in ways that will require serious legal frameworks that currently do not exist.
The Bottom Line
Can you buy land on the moon? Technically, Dennis Hope will sell you some. The legal validity of your deed is uncertain at best and meaningless at worst. But as a gift, as a novelty, as a conversation piece — it works. The Lunar Embassy has been selling moon land for over forty years and has never been shut down, sued successfully, or prevented from operating. Whether that constitutes legitimacy is up to you.
What is not in doubt is that the question of lunar property rights is becoming more rather than less pressing as humanity edges toward genuine commercial activity in space. The moon is large, mostly unclaimed, and potentially resource-rich. The legal frameworks for deciding who owns what are being written right now, by governments and space agencies and private companies, and the outcome will matter far more than any certificate Dennis Hope ever printed on parchment paper.
But if you want to own a piece of the moon for $34.99 — it’s still available. Probably.
The Lunar Embassy Corporation’s claims to lunar ownership have no recognised legal standing under international space law. Certificates purchased from lunarembassy.com are novelty items and do not constitute legally enforceable property rights. Prices verified June 2026 but may have changed — always check directly with the vendor before purchase.