Making a mint out of the Moon - Dennis Hope says he owns the moon and he will sell you some!
From his office in Nevada, entrepreneur Dennis Hope has spawned a multi-million-dollar property business selling plots of lunar real estate at $20 (£10) an acre. Mr Hope exploited a loophole in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and he has been claiming ownership of the Earth's Moon - and seven planets and their moons - for more than 20 years. Hope says he has so far sold more than 400 million acres (1.6 million sq km). These are "truly unowned lands", he says. "We're doing exactly what our forefathers did when they came to the New World from the European continent." Buyers include Hollywood stars, large corporations - including the Hilton and Marriot hotel chains - and even former US presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. George W Bush is also said to be a stake holder.
This of course is all in good humor....however it's no mystery that China and Russia are making major pushes to gain a manned foothold on Earth's neighbor. Also one of the biggest is US space contractor Lockheed Martin, which is currently developing technologies that will enable future lunar residents to exploit the lunar surface. In particular, it is working on a process which will convert Moon dust into oxygen and water. It may even be able to turn it into rocket fuel. However one of the biggest paydays might come from what is just laying around on the Moon. Data collected from the Apollo Moon landings have indicated that large deposits of an extremely rare gas called helium 3 are trapped in the lunar soil. Scientists believe that this helium 3 could be used to create a new source of almost inexhaustible, clean, pollution-free energy on Earth. A metric ton of helium 3 would supply about one-sixth of the energy needs today of the British Isles. Plans are already afoot in the US and Russia to strip-mine lunar helium 3 and transport it the 240,000 miles (385,000km) back to Earth. To get an idea of how valuable H3 is, if gold were mined on the moon (there is ample evidence that the mineral is in plentiful supply there) it would be too expensive to transport it to Earth, however Helium Three is worth several billion dollars a ton!
From his office in Nevada, entrepreneur Dennis Hope has spawned a multi-million-dollar property business selling plots of lunar real estate at $20 (£10) an acre. Mr Hope exploited a loophole in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and he has been claiming ownership of the Earth's Moon - and seven planets and their moons - for more than 20 years. Hope says he has so far sold more than 400 million acres (1.6 million sq km). These are "truly unowned lands", he says. "We're doing exactly what our forefathers did when they came to the New World from the European continent." Buyers include Hollywood stars, large corporations - including the Hilton and Marriot hotel chains - and even former US presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. George W Bush is also said to be a stake holder.
This of course is all in good humor....however it's no mystery that China and Russia are making major pushes to gain a manned foothold on Earth's neighbor. Also one of the biggest is US space contractor Lockheed Martin, which is currently developing technologies that will enable future lunar residents to exploit the lunar surface. In particular, it is working on a process which will convert Moon dust into oxygen and water. It may even be able to turn it into rocket fuel. However one of the biggest paydays might come from what is just laying around on the Moon. Data collected from the Apollo Moon landings have indicated that large deposits of an extremely rare gas called helium 3 are trapped in the lunar soil. Scientists believe that this helium 3 could be used to create a new source of almost inexhaustible, clean, pollution-free energy on Earth. A metric ton of helium 3 would supply about one-sixth of the energy needs today of the British Isles. Plans are already afoot in the US and Russia to strip-mine lunar helium 3 and transport it the 240,000 miles (385,000km) back to Earth. To get an idea of how valuable H3 is, if gold were mined on the moon (there is ample evidence that the mineral is in plentiful supply there) it would be too expensive to transport it to Earth, however Helium Three is worth several billion dollars a ton!
No comments:
Post a Comment