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Don't you know who owns the moon? Anyone can buy a piece. ;-)

http://www.moonshop.com/

or

http://www.lunarregistry.com/

or

http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/

or yet still

http://www.moonestates.com/

Of course, there are all those people who claim that some royalty paid their great-great-great and so on grand father for some great work by giving them the moon.

If no one owns the moon, how can these guys sell plots of land on it? Former California Governor Jerry Brown owns some.

...from the Legal lunar landowners when you destroy their property.

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.

I think this was an incredibly shortsighted viewpoint on the part of the U.S. government back in 1967 (when the treaty was signed and ratified by the U.S. Senate), but at the time most of Congress felt that we would never get even to the moon, much less be able to build any resonable space colonies, the Apollo program not withstanding.

Private ownership of extraterrestial bodies is not expressly forbidden, but the mechanism for being able to grant that ownership and the legal machinery to even file for ownership is simply not in place. There are a few people who are still trying, even without formal sanction.

Two sites do come to mind though:

http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/

and

http://www.lunarembassy.com/

Personally, I think both are total scam artists along the lines of people buying stars to name after friends and relatives. Still, this is more or less harmless fun regardless of these so-called land claims. If the USA doesn't have soverign claim to the moon, there is no way that the Lunar Embassy could possibly have legal claim through the land office of the U.S. government at San Francisco (the Lunar Embassy's claim to fame in this case).

What is going to have to happen is some legal machinery to decide what laws apply to events that happen on these planetary bodies. For example, if you kill somebody on the moon, can you be convicted in the U.S. court system? Don't be too hasty here, because remember, soverign authority doesn't apply anymore.

What about copyright laws? Do they apply in space as well? (Recording contracts are now starting to cover extraterrestial distribution rights due to a recording company executive worried about who owned distribution rights to music the Astronauts in the Apollo program were playing.)

So far these issues haven't been dealt with because for now all places except for the Apollo missions have been built on the Earth, and soverignty claims can be resolved. If you kill somebody on the ISS, it would matter what module you killed them in, then it would be either Russian, U.S.A., or E.U. courts that would be authorized to prosecute based on what module the crime happened in. That would still be a big mess, legally speaking (not to mention the physical mess on the ISS itself).

I'm using murder here because that is a crime that would not be lightly brushed under the table if it were to happen in space. Lesser crimes like tax evasion (like what happened during the flight of Apollo XIII when John Swigert forgot to file his income taxes before he left) would probabally wait or could be sorted out without a big international incident.

I think this also solves rather nicely who or what would be able to enforce land rights on a place like the moon. If they can lock you up in jail and confiscate your personal property, they can also grant you real estate rights.

I would personally hate giving this power to the U.N., but at least that is an international organization that could in theory be able to establish these property rights. Just imagine though that the U.N. would also be able to pass civil laws for ordinary people and levy taxes. That's why I wouldn't want them trying to decide what would happen on the future homestead for my grandkids.

The only real legitimate route at this point is going to be the creation of a wholly new soverign entity that has no relationship to any of the signatory members of the Moon Treaty.

Impact of the Spacecraft at your chosen location on the Moon (nearside only)

They better not crash on my land:
http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/

it's a tad upsetting to think someone else might single-handedly "claim" the entirity of that pretty disc in the sky.

Someone already has. There is an international agreement that nobody can own the moon or any other celestial body, but this guy claims there is a loophole that allows individuals to claim celestial property, so he up and claimed most of the solar system and started selling it an acre at a time. I'd love to see how he manages to enforce it when people actually land on the moon and start setting up operations, however.

"You can't do that there, I own that!"
"Oh yeah? Well, you're down there. We're up here. Try and stop us."

Actually all the land on all planets i our solar system is already legally owned by the guy who runs this site: Planetary Investments. Best to buy your space property now while it's really cheap...

Since a lot of people think the moon will be extremely valuable someday when interplanetary travel is common...I thought I'd inform everyone that they can buy land on the moon. I haven't done it. I'm not sure if it's a hoax or not, but here's the link. Planetary Investments

...when you can be the proud owner of property on the Moon!

... well, 1,777.58 acres worth of it, but I've got a deed to prove it.

So listen up China, India, Brazil, M$/RIAA/SCO Robber-Barons: take one molecule of my helium-3 and I'll slap your asteroids with a lawsuit so fast your heads will be spinning fast enough to establish their own artificial gravity!

"DOWN, DOWN , DOWN!! GO, GO, GO!! MINE, MINE, MINE!! BWAH-HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
-- Daffy Duck