Meet Dennis Hope: The man who claimed the Moon and made millions

For centuries, owning land has meant having a place that can be measured, divided and legally transferred. Dennis Hope thought he had found an exception. In the late 20th century, while considering how to make money from property, the unemployed American turned his attention away from land on Earth and towards the moon. He had read the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty, which prevents countries from claiming celestial bodies as their territory. Hope believed the wording left an opening for a private individual. He declared the moon his property, divided it into parcels and began selling certificates to customers around the world. The idea attracted buyers, but it also raised a basic legal question: can anyone actually own a piece of the moon?How an unemployed man turned the moon into a property ideaHope's story started when he was out of work and thinking about how he might make money from property. Real estate seemed familiar enough, but there was a problem: conventional land was already owned, divided and priced by somebody else. The moon presented a rather different possibility.During his university years, Hope had encountered the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty. The...