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Lord British Claims He Owns the Moon
An anonymous reader writes "Following the recent discovery of Richard Garriott's old moon rover, the man known as Lord British has laid claim to his own lunar territory. Moon dwellers, all hail your new overlord!"
So if another probe lands in the vicinity, or roves its away across the supposed territory, would Lord British then have grounds to sue for ruining the property values? "Good Lord, man, look at what you've done! All those tracks ruin the pristine scenery!"
Garriott may or may not own a legal title to Lunokhod (it is by no means a given that the auction sale was a legitimate title), but there is no way buying Lunokhod gives him any ownership rights to any piece of the Moon, however small.
From http://www.space.com/news/soviet-moon-rover-space-law-100322.html:
Validity of ownership?
Enter space lawyer, Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz. She is Director of the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law and Research Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi.
"The soundness of a property right depends in large part on the integrity of the documents that memorialize the right," Gabrynowicz told SPACE.com via email. "This is why property buyers conduct title searches before buying property. They want to be sure that the title is good."
Gabrynowicz said that without reading the papers or knowing how they were processed and by whom, she can't speak to the validity of the ownership of a space object purchased at auction.
"However, a contention that buying a space object that landed on the lunar surface from a sovereign nation gives rise to a property right to the territory under it is wrong," Gabrynowicz said.
Gabrynowicz said that States-Parties to the Outer Space Treaty of 1966 cannot acquire lunar territory by landing an object on the moon.
"The USSR was and Russia is a party to the Outer Space Treaty," she added. "It did not acquire the territory under the object when it landed. One cannot sell what one does not own. Since USSR/Russia did not have a property right to the territory under the landed object, there was nothing to sell."
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Contrary to his title, "Lord British" is not, in fact, British. He's actually American and even went to my high school in League City, Texas, USA.
Ahh, I was going by the Wikipedia article, which while not disagreeing with you, does state he was born in Cambridge England, then moved to Texas in the US.
Assuming that is true, he is/was indeed a British citizen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott
Even if he is a US citizen, or dual citizenship, both countries still have signed the treaty I mentioned and he would still fall under those laws.