Long before Donald Trump declared that “the moon is ours,” an unemployed American made an extraordinary claim of his own: he said the Moon belonged to him — and began selling pieces of it to people around the world.
In the late 20th century, Dennis Hope turned an unusual interpretation of international space law into a decades-long business. He divided the lunar surface into parcels, sold certificates representing ownership of the land and reportedly claimed to have sold more than 611 million acres.
