The bloke who stole a generation of kids' time when he developed the Ultima series of games now claims that he owns the moon.
Richard Garriott who is more famous as his ulta-ego Lord British, splashed out some cash and bought a Russian luna rover.
Garriott purchased the former Soviet Union's Luna 21 lander and the Lunokhod 2 rover for $68,000 at a Sotheby’s space auction in 1993.
Now he is trying to work out determine if owning these devices on the moon entitles him to ownership of the property it rests on.
Last week, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found Lunokhod 2, sitting clearly on the planet’s surface.
It had thought to have crashed into a lunar wall and been covered by moon dirt. Garriott said that he now had a contemporary photograph of his property on the moon.
“I think I can truly make the only private, legitimate claim to territory – at the very least around my rover and, potentially, along its point of travel…to give me some actual property rights on the moon," he said.
Garriott is the son of astronaut Owen Garriott. He paid $35 million to go to the International Space Station in October, 2008.
He hopes to personally travel to the moon in the future and calls the private space race the quickest way for people to return to the lunar surface.
Garriott believes an international framework already exists to support his territorial claim.
Garriott thinks his Lunokhod 2 rover deed of ownership will guarantee him to some lunar property rights.
He told Space.com he bought the former Soviet Union's Luna 21 lander and the Lunokhod 2 Rover for $68,000 at a Sotheby’s space auction in 1993. And now Space.com reports that he is trying to determine if owning these devices on the moon entitles him to ownership of the property it rests on.
He told Space.com that he’s willing to allow future space travellers to pay a parking fee on his property. Of course if someone has got prior claim to the land they could charge him a bomb for parking his hunk of junk on their land and abandoning it.
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If there be any particulate responsibility owing to this Lunar Litter, it is risk of "substantial" fines for its failure to meet regulations on limiting pollutants.
It is time lords cleaned up their act, innit?
The Soviet's lunar buggy plopped down on the moon in January 1973, one month after NASA's Apollo 17. The Moon is no doubt an extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States. The United States has traditionally proclaimed the sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing its insular celestial air/space territory.
No doubt that Lord British would love to be a Moon squatter; however, one may not a homesteader be, until one steads his home on the Moon, and all Lord British's claims carry considerable less weight on the Moon.
If Lord British truly owns a classic Soviet-era scuttle on the Moon, the US income tax rules with respect to that vessel are almost the same as if the vehicle were located in the US. On his U.S. tax return Lord British is obligated to use the same depreciation rates, and the same rules with respect to income and expenses.
Failure to file may result in the IRS imposing severe penalties, including the possibility of seizure.
Send cheque to me, care of Mike Magee. sorry, Nick, but I've probably less chance of Mike slipping off to the pub for pints off my cheque. He'll spend it more on whiskey.
His *what*?"
If you don't know the words, please look them up, that's what dictionaries are made for!
Mr. Gariott, as an owner of actual property on the moon, could potentially lay claim to a part of the lunar surface. Far from being a lunatic, his ambitions are, in fact, reasonably well supported in international law.
I would highly recommend that tech eye engage in more thorough legal fact checking before resorting to crude mudslinging.
Haha, sounds like a mistake a voice to text converter might make when dealing with accents.
Darned Gallifreyans I knew they'd come back to haunt us.
Durp-dee-durr... The moon is not a planet, it's uhm.. a moon.
Now he is trying to work out determine?
It had thought to have crashed?
No. Not how it works. No.
Its about time the land grab started. It'll speed up the race to get there now!!
He's has been standing there far too long.
3 euro p /hour since 1993..
Thats around about 151.400 hours
And so that maes a parking fee of E453.420,- euro.
For standing on my property
He bought a car, an abandoned car sitting in the middle of nowhere. If I buy the title to an abondoned car that is laying in the middle of the desert, I don't own the desert.
Assuming he is truly attempting to make a legal claim to part of the moon, it will be interesting to see what the courts decide.
@Peter M - Yes, that's exactly how it works, get out of my house.