Well, we did a random survey of 100 members (not a full double-blind controlled analysis, just typically random).
The breakdown of nationalities (by postal address) was:
USA 37; Australia 24; UK 16, Canada 7, Other European 7, India 3, others 6.
Would be nice to get some Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Africans and South Americans on board … we will have to look at a multi-lingual site.
We send out an email questionaire and got 31 replies.
1. Happy with standard of certificate? 70% said YES, although the remainder did say they were still value for money. We have therefore done some rebranding and upgraded our certificates to a high standard. ****
2. Happy with our “Declaration of Intent?” ~80% Yes.
3. Expect to actually get title registration to Mars land? ~40%
4. Expect to initiate an update to save the Space Treaty and keep Space safe? ~30%
5. Happy with plans for UN Trusteeship should our applications for registration prove successful? ~70%
6. Happy with the price? ~80%
7. Reason for buying a Mars land claim? …
Gift ~65%, Speculative Investment ~25%, To save the Space Treaty ~5%, other
Further comments/complaints:
We got plenty of nice compliments…mainly about the amount of information and ethical nature of the claim/campaign going on through this website and the associated twitter site.
There was plenty of encouragement to continue to press for registration (via due process).
There was a single complaint that a member did not realise that the certificates were a downloadable product rather than certificates to be posted. We do clearly state that on our product and purchase pages.
There were also 2 comments that members would have preferred the certificates to be automatically stamped with the intended recipient’s name. At this time we do not do that. Each certificate is stamped at the bottom with a unique transaction number and the email address of the purchaser (this is for our records and future registration purposes). The recipient’s name can be added to the allocated space either in handwriting or print by the purchaser. We do record the purchasers name and email/address plus the name of the intended recipient (if different). As well as preventing any successful fraudulent activity, this is for future Mars land registration purposes.
There was also a question why we did not issue a deed certificate instead of a claim certificate. Well, a celestial deed would be illegal to issue at this time. Other sites which issue deeds are misleading their customers. They stamp their deeds with “novelty gift” stamps to keep them out of trouble, but of course the buyer only knows this in advance if he/she searches deep into the terms&conditions pages. This means they are not legal documents. It is legal for us to issue land claim certificates because we have done the necessary work to justify our claim of possession and can legally share/sell that possession. In order for all of us to get title deeds, we need a recognised registry to award us … this is what we are pushing for … and progressing pretty well.
There was also a comment that our Declaration of Intent was a bit confusing … why couldn’t we simplify things. Well, we have done our best. The thing is, when you get into the detail on matters like this, you need to cover all possible outcomes. Our intent is to reward all our memeber sif possible. Thus, if title registration was to be granted, our members will either end up with cash ($1000-$1,000,000 … which comes from nominal UN payments), or actual deeds to land on Mars. However, it is our hope that we can save the space treaty by getting the UN to update it to keep it strong and relevant. So therefore a lot of the detail concerns actions aimed to apply pressure to the UN committees (esp COPUOS). We also favour UN Trusteeship of celestial land. It is not an ideal solution, but certainly workable and better than the current situation. It will still facillitate commercial space exploration and exploitation under UN control.
There was also the comment: why if we think the UN is doing such a bad job with the space treaty do we now want to add UN trusteeship of space? That’s a good question. We would suggest a smaller space savvy council/panel to administer UN Trusteeship (after all, the UN did an adequate job for countries through the UN Trusteeship Council).
Be aware also, a judge in an international court can choose to block our claim by uplifting international law. If we propose UN Trusteeship (in the case of us winning title registration of Mars lands), then a judge may look more kindly upon our claim.
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These results were largely expected. We cant be surprised that there arent more people buying land claims to save the treaty when our website marketing is all about “cheap land on Mars”.
We do give out full info on our claim and campaign and our ‘Declaration of Intent’. However, for the purposes of raising money for our legal due process (perhaps via UN court or PCA), we felt it was better to appeal to gift buyers who want to give a genuine, legal, ethical, immediate gift.
If other members have something to add on these matters, please get in touch by email. We read them every day! We also listen … hence the upgrade to higher standard certificates with better branding.