By Anupum Pant

Michael Stevens from Vsauce never ceases to amaze me with his facts. Recently, while watching a video on the channel, I noted this interesting story.

About 11 months before NASA’s ‘NEAR Shoemaker’ spacecraft landed on the asteroid 433, Eros, Gregory W. Nemitz claimed its ownership. He somehow got it registered and waited for the NASA’s probe to land on the near earth asteroid.

The asteroid was estimated to hold several million billion dollars of platinum. When NASA landed their spacecraft on Eros, Nemitz prepared an invoice of $20 and sent it to NASA. According to him, the parking rates on his extra-terrestrial land were $ 0.20 per year and he had decided to charge them to cover the next $ 100 years of parking.

NASA of course refused to pay and sent him a letter denying the payment. In the year 2003, Nemitz filed a case against NASA, saying that they had defaulted his payment.

The judgement was of course against Nemitz as he wasn’t able to prove the actual ownership. There’s no way he could have. Michael explains why…

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