The Outer Space Treaty and Why Nobody Owns Mars Yet

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. That is close to the full text of the article. It is one sentence.

Because it binds states, and because property title ultimately comes from a state, there is no authority anywhere that can issue you enforceable land on Mars. Not a government, not a company, not a registry.

Some argue the treaty restricts nations but says nothing about individuals, so a private claim might survive. It is a fun argument and it has never worked, because a claim with no state to enforce it is just an opinion written down.

A few national laws, including the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, do allow companies to own resources they extract. Extracted material, not the ground it came from. The distinction matters.

Because people want to participate in something before it is settled. Antarctic expedition rosters, early domain registrations, founding member lists. None of them granted rights. All of them became historical documents that people kept.

A Mars registry sits in that tradition. Buy it as a record of a moment, not a claim on a future. Our guide on what owning a piece of Mars really means goes deeper on that, and the Explorer plot is the cheapest way to hold one.