Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: It's just sitting there, spinning in outer space as it
Speaker 1: orbits the Earth two hundred and thirty nine thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: It's a big, round rock that controls the tides and
Speaker 1: moderates our planet's movements on its axis. And it's right
Speaker 1: for the taking. At least that's what people have been
Speaker 1: saying for decades. The Moon doesn't just represent one small
Speaker 1: step from man, nor one giant leap for mankind. It
Speaker 1: represents a new frontier, entirely real estate in space. Back
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, over one hundred nations signed a
Speaker 1: document known as the Outer Space Treaty, which basically outlined
Speaker 1: the rules by which every country should explore and inhabit
Speaker 1: outer space. There were a number of principles, including one
Speaker 1: that stated outer space shall be free for exploration and
Speaker 1: use by all states as well as the Moon and
Speaker 1: other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Speaker 1: But one year earlier, a different governing body took it
Speaker 1: upon themselves to draft its own document, one stating that
Speaker 1: its people owned the Moon. It was called the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Lunar Ownership, and it was signed by thirty five
Speaker 1: citizens from the town of Geneva, Ohio. The declaration gave
Speaker 1: the people of Geneva and I quote, full possession and
Speaker 1: complete responsibility of the Moon, at least according to them,
Speaker 1: And although everyone elsewhere was free to enjoy the moonlight
Speaker 1: given off by the celestial body, Geneva was not responsible
Speaker 1: for any issues incurred by people who moon bathed a
Speaker 1: little too much. But the document had another component, one
Speaker 1: that allowed the town to sell off one hundred plots
Speaker 1: of land on the Moon's surface for one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a pop. And yet, the people of Geneva weren't the
Speaker 1: only ones who would come up with the idea to
Speaker 1: sell land on the Moon. About fourteen years earlier, a
Speaker 1: man named Dennis Hope figured it out on his own.
Speaker 1: Hope was a car salesman and a ventriloquist, and he
Speaker 1: had hit a rough patch in his life. He and
Speaker 1: his wife were getting divorced, and he'd been living paycheck
Speaker 1: to paycheck. Mister Hope was well losing hope until one
Speaker 1: day when he was driving down the road and looked
Speaker 1: out the window toward the sky, and there it was
Speaker 1: all that lunar land ripe for the taking. He did
Speaker 1: a little digging at the local college library and found
Speaker 1: the Outer Space Treaty from the mid sixties. As he
Speaker 1: read through the document, he noticed something. Even though the
Speaker 1: treaties stated that no nation could declare ownership over the Moon,
Speaker 1: there was nothing in there that said a person couldn't
Speaker 1: own it. Hope, believing that he had found a loophole,
Speaker 1: filed the claim with his local county seat for the
Speaker 1: whole of the Moon's surface, along with the surfaces of
Speaker 1: every other planet in the Solar System except for the
Speaker 1: Earth and the Sun. Nobody, of course, took him seriously,
Speaker 1: but after consulting with three supervisors across two separate floors
Speaker 1: in five hours, he finally got what he wanted, ownership
Speaker 1: over the Moon and the planets. He then wrote to
Speaker 1: the General Assembly of the United Nations as well as
Speaker 1: the Russian government, letting them know that there was a
Speaker 1: new sheriff in town, and that if anyone wanted to
Speaker 1: sell land in space, they had to go through him first.
Speaker 1: For those wondering, hope will sell anyone an acre of
Speaker 1: moonland for about thirty five dollars. But Dennis and the
Speaker 1: people of Ohio were not alone in believing the Moon
Speaker 1: was up for grabs. Others had been declaring ownership of
Speaker 1: it for years before Geneva. There was a science fiction
Speaker 1: fan club in Berkeley, California, that had laid claim to
Speaker 1: part of the Moon in nineteen fifty two. That same year,
Speaker 1: the chairman of the Hayden Planetarium in New York planned
Speaker 1: on selling parcels of land there for a dollar an acre,
Speaker 1: And in nineteen fifty four, a Chilean lawyer named Gennaro
Speaker 1: Gerada Veda published three separate announcements of his claim of
Speaker 1: the Mood on the Official Diary of Chile. Even President
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon acknowledged Veda's ownership, sending him a telegram via
Speaker 1: the US embassy in nineteen sixty nine. Nixon requested permission
Speaker 1: for his astronauts to land there. It doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: far away it is or how expensive it is to
Speaker 1: go there. For every person who gazes at the night
Speaker 1: sky and sees the enormity of the universe, there will
Speaker 1: always be someone who looks up and wonders, how much
Speaker 1: could I get for that? And now for something a
Speaker 1: bit lighter. Every day the world continues to plunge deeper
Speaker 1: into darkness due to war, climate change, famine and other cateshts, fees,
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, scholars, leaders and CEOs with too much money
Speaker 1: having dreaming up ways to save humanity or at least themselves.
Speaker 1: Some of their plans involve inhabiting other planets. Others believe
Speaker 1: building big underground bunkers with their own ecosystems is the
Speaker 1: way to go. But one man had another idea. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't exactly feasible. Yet you could say he had
Speaker 1: his head in the clouds. His name was Richard Buckminster Fuller,
Speaker 1: the architect who made the Geodesic Dome popular. If you've
Speaker 1: ever walked around Epcot at Disney World, you've undoubtedly seen
Speaker 1: the giant golf ball shape sphere known as spaceship Earth,
Speaker 1: a phrase that he also coined. Born in eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: Fuller attended Harvard for a short time before he was
Speaker 1: expelled for missing his exams and partying too much. He
Speaker 1: then traveled to Canada, where he took a job at
Speaker 1: a mill until re enrolling at Harvard again in nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: but that didn't last long either. He was soon expelled
Speaker 1: once again, ultimately joining the U the US Navy to
Speaker 1: serve during World War One. In fact, Fuller didn't get
Speaker 1: into architecture until the nineteen twenties, when he started working
Speaker 1: on the Stockade Building System with his father in law.
Speaker 1: This was a construction system made using bricks of compressed
Speaker 1: wood shavings with large vertical holes drilled down their centers.
Speaker 1: The holes would then be filled with concrete so that
Speaker 1: these stacked blocks couldn't move. After that company failed, though,
Speaker 1: Fuller contemplated ending his life in nineteen twenty seven. That
Speaker 1: is until he experienced a life changing event that turned
Speaker 1: everything around for him. He felt as though a ball
Speaker 1: of white light surrounded him and lifted him into the air,
Speaker 1: and then a voice spoke telling him, you do not
Speaker 1: have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong
Speaker 1: to you. You belong to the universe. Fuller was transformed
Speaker 1: by the experience and got back to work trying to
Speaker 1: improve humanity by revolutionizing housing. He designed the Dimaxian house,
Speaker 1: which was an inexpensive home that could be produced at
Speaker 1: scale and dropped into place on a plot of the land.
Speaker 1: There was also the geodesic dome, which came about in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one. The dome was cheap, resilient, and easy
Speaker 1: to assemble, making it ideal for housing, especially in lower
Speaker 1: income areas and harsh climates, and that design led to
Speaker 1: another creation, one that had the potential to change housing
Speaker 1: all over the world. Japanese media mogul Matsutaro Shoriki had
Speaker 1: challenged Fuller to create a community to accommodate Japan's growing population.
Speaker 1: To do this, the houses would be required to float
Speaker 1: on Tokyo Bay, linked together like a giant city, and
Speaker 1: what Fuller came up with definitely did float, but not
Speaker 1: on the bay. His homes were designed to rise into
Speaker 1: the air like balloons instead. He called them spherical Tensegrity
Speaker 1: Atmospheric Research Stations, or stars for short. They were also
Speaker 1: known as cloud nines and were giant geodesic spheres filled
Speaker 1: with air. Each dome was intended to be a half
Speaker 1: mile in diameter, yet only way a fraction of the
Speaker 1: weight of the air inside. Using a sustainable heat source
Speaker 1: like solar energy or human movement inside, the one degree
Speaker 1: fahrenheit increase of the internal temperature could cause the dome
Speaker 1: to float. If a person wanted to remain in one spot,
Speaker 1: they could tether their massive sphere to a mountain or
Speaker 1: another anchor. Or if they wanted to travel the world,
Speaker 1: they could drift freely throughout the sky. But Fuller didn't
Speaker 1: just picture them as houses. He also anticipated using them
Speaker 1: as impromptu emergency relief sites during disasters. Unfortunately, his dream
Speaker 1: remained just that a dream. The technology didn't exist at
Speaker 1: the time to make these cloud nines a reality. Fuller
Speaker 1: himself believed that they wouldn't be feasible for another fifty years. Well,
Speaker 1: that time has come and gone, and we're no closer
Speaker 1: to living in floating spheres now than we were back then.
Speaker 1: But if floods, wildfires, and heat waves continue to pummel
Speaker 1: the planet, then we may be forced to find new
Speaker 1: ways to live. And right now, a geodesic balloon doesn't
Speaker 1: sound half bad. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.