From an article by  Stefan Kostarelis:

Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, you accept that on July 20, 1969, we put men on the moon.

According to NASA, at 10:56pm (EDT), Neil Armstrong climbed down from the lunar module and uttered those famous words. Along with fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin (who was second on the moon, but won the real pissing contest), Armstrong spent the next two and a half hours collecting samples and taking photographs.

Before leaving, the two proudly stuck an American flag into the ground. Were they staking a claim to the dusty rock? No, and it wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Just two years earlier, a treaty had been created to prohibit any nation owning the moon.

On January 27, 1967, more than 60 countries – including Cold War foes the USA and Russia – signed the Outer Space Treaty. This treaty declared that the moon and other “celestial bodies” were “the province of mankind”. Since then, the treaty has been ratified by a total of 102 countries, including all major space-faring nations.

So pretty much all countries have agreed to hold off on claiming the moon. But what about private citizens?

 

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Image Credit:   Adobe

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