Man makes a business selling lunar landscape

GARDNERVILLE, Nev. -- On U.S. 395, which cuts straight through this little town, Dennis Hope sells undeveloped land for the bargain price of $19.99 an acre.

There are spacious lots near grand locales: The Sea of Tranquility. The Sea of Serenity.

Not a neighbor in sight, all the way to the horizon.

Granted, there is no air and no water. The daytime high: 225 degrees. The nighttime low: minus 245 degrees.

Behold the moon, Hope's real estate boon. Millions have already purchased prime parcels. They have nicely framed certificates to prove it.

The moon seller is a former actor, ventriloquist, purveyor of mobile homes and one-time deli counter worker. By his estimate, he sampled 96 occupations before opening his company, Lunar Embassy.

It is the biggest success of his many careers.

By lightning turns, he is blunt, verbose, defensive and testy. When he first started doing this 23 years ago, his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek. Now, he says, he truly believes the moon will soon be colonized by Earthlings.

The smart ones, he says, will arrive clutching deeds issued by his company.

"I believe with every particle of my being that I'm selling property that belongs to me," he said. "We believe what we're doing is real."

Lunar Embassy, licensed by the state of Nevada, boasts 2.5 million property owners in 80 countries. More than 1,300 corporations have purchased plots, including Safeway supermarkets in Great Britain, which resold 20,000 lots to grocery shoppers.

Lest the entire enterprise seem all harmless fun, consider the impoverished country of Romania, where the average monthly salary is $100. Some Romanians are willing to spend half that amount for the promise of living on the moon.

"I don't consider myself to be a scam artist," Hope said. "I don't consider myself to be anything other than a businessperson that has found an opportunity."

He sits in the office of Lunar Embassy, where T-shirts, plaques and maps herald his company's right to homestead outer space -- and where all of the above are available for purchase.

His back is ramrod straight, his elbows planted, his fingers drumming the walnut veneer of a conference table. He looks as if explaining what he does constitutes a monumental waste of his time.

"I'm no different than any other business person in the world," he said. "The only difference is the product that I sell doesn't exist here."

That's a rather large difference.

"I don't see it as a huge difference," he said, his voice turning to iron. And therein lies his sales pitch.

Hope's transformation from cynic to convert might be the logical outcome of inordinate hours spent in the company of space junkies, Star Trek disciples and entrepreneurs determined to travel outer space in privately built vehicles.

"All you have to do is open your ears and listen and the possibilities are endless," he said. "We will be on the moon this year. It's all going to start happening."

He sounds like a man convinced by his own hype.

In countries including Romania, Sweden, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Russia, Hope has sold "ambassadorships" to local business people for a one-time, minimum fee of $75,000. Under contract to Lunar Embassy, the "ambassadors" are obligated to sell a specified number of properties per month.

In Romania, for example, Adi Dragan of Bucharest says he's sold about 200 plots in two years at the rate of $49 for 70 hectares (172.9 acres). Enough, says the 33-year-old, for him and his wife, paralyzed from a work injury, to get by in his poor country.

Those who buy see it as insurance for the future, he says. A new father bought a plot, Dragan said, in the hope that one day "my daughter will go to the moon."

Recently, Hope began selling pieces of Mars and of a moon orbiting Jupiter, and coming soon: lots on Mercury.

He believes he has the right to sell celestial properties because of the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

There is such a thing, as well as an entire division of the United Nations, based in Vienna, called the Office for Outer Space Affairs. It is home to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

The treaty, drafted while the United States and the Soviet Union raced each other to the moon, decreed outer space the "province of all mankind." It is on Article II that Hope hangs his space helmet. Moons and planets, the paragraph says, are "not subject to national appropriation."

Meaning -- to Hope anyway -- that individual appropriation is fair game.

"This was my way of saying to the world: OK, you guys have written all these laws and you've created all these sociological constructs," he said. "Well, within that layout, you have given certain opportunities to individuals, if they really want to take the time to look at it."

UN legal officers say Hope's claim is without merit.

But in the state of Nevada, selling land you cannot walk, drive, fly or boat to is perfectly legal.

"Some people in Nevada might argue that our jurisdiction extends to the moon, but we don't really think that," said Tom Sargent, spokesman for the state attorney general.

As long as the company pays its yearly $100 fee and no one complains, Lunar Embassy is licensed in good standing. So far, no complaints.

People in Sargent's office -- and his own family -- have bought parcels. Do they believe they've purchased a real acre?

"Well, my son certainly think he owns one," Sargent said. "He's 10. It's on his wall in his bedroom."

But selling the moon has landed some of Hope's overseas associates in a heap of trouble on Earth. At least two have been jailed on fraud charges.

Lisa Fulkerson of Chatham, Ontario, Canada, faces trial there on fraud and theft charges for allegedly deceiving investors and conning a bank out of $600,000 while operating as Hope's Canadian ambassador.

She had seemed a stellar saleswoman. After just 10 days on the job, she sold $400,000 worth of moon plots, Hope said. "She could sell ice to an Eskimo," he grumbled.

After her arrest, Hope sued her for $2 million, alleging she violated her Lunar Embassy contract by promising investors she also had the contractual right to sell moon properties in America.

The United States, he says, is his territory.

In Amsterdam, Rene Veenema also landed behind bars, accused of fraud and forgery for selling Lunar Embassy moon plots without a contract with Hope. For years, the Dutchman sold parcels for $1,600, claiming they were Lunar Embassy properties. But they weren't, says Hope, who reported Veenema to Dutch authorities.

"I conned them all," Veenema told a Dutch newspaper after his 2003 arrest. He has promised to repay his customers and to "learn to stop lying and cheating."

Hope is not the only man to lay claim to the moon.

In 1996, retiree Martin Juergens of Germany claimed his family rightfully owned the moon because in 1756, Prussian emperor Frederick the Great presented it to his ancestor, Aul Juergens, as payment for services rendered.

In a rush to exploit the moon by exploration, other firms are competing to develop commercial space travel. One La Jolla, Calif.-based company plans to crash-land there within the coming months -- or perhaps years -- carrying a cargo of business cards, ashes, messages or anything else people will pay to have shipped.

Hope himself hopes to be on a moon shuttle, albeit alive and in one piece, so he can plant his company's flag on the surface and claim the moon in person.

"Some people think it's intriguing," Hope said. "Some people think it's interesting. Some people want to lock me up in a rubber room."

Ray Allsip, manager of Penguin Plumbing and Electric Supply in Gardenerville, has known Hope for years. His wife and Hope's wife have been best friends since high school.

"It's far-fetched, I know," he said of his friend's business. "But look at the guy who invented the hula hoop. When people asked, 'What does it do?' all the guy could say is, 'Well ... it goes round and round."'

Allsip bought a piece of celestial property back when Hope sold 1,400-acre parcels for about $15. The deed hangs on the wall of his home office. "You get more than $15 worth of conversation just from that," he said, bellowing with laughter.

He doesn't put much stock in owning the moon, but he can't help admiring Hope's chutzpah.

"Look, you throw your money in a wishing well, how much of that do you get back? It's not like he's waving a stick at people, saying, 'Send money, my wife is sick and dying.'"

So if people buy Pet Rocks and stars in the firmament and a giant toy company can get international publicity by announcing the break up of two dolls, what's wrong with selling an acre of celestial property?

"Barbie and Ken wouldn't have all those things to divide up -- the Malibu beach house, the motor home, the cars -- if somebody wasn't out there dreaming about them," Allsip said. And then he laughs long and hard.

On the Net

www.lunarembassy.com