The tree · Drive · Happens to the world · Plays out over the whole window
A site beyond the Earth-Moon system is crewed without a break for a year
The Tier 3 definition needs at least one site beyond the Earth-Moon system: Mars, the asteroid belt, an outer moon, or a habitat out there. A crew round trip proves people can get there and back; a site crewed continuously for a year, with rotations, proves people can stay. It sits under drive because keeping a site beyond the Moon supplied is a transit problem before it is anything else.
The test: what counts as it having happened
A site at least five million kilometres from Earth (about thirteen times the Moon's distance, well outside the region where Earth's gravity dominates, so that a station around the Moon or at a balance point near the Earth-Moon system does not count) is occupied by people continuously for twelve months, with at least one arrival of new occupants before any departure leaves the site empty, confirmed by the operator and independent tracking of the vehicles involved.
Settled by: The operator's records and independent tracking
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | 55% | 75% | 90% | 93% |
Each column is a different guess at how long I live, from current trends (baseline) to open-ended. The number is the chance this happens before that deadline, assuming everything it depends on happens first. As of September 19th, 2026.
Why these numbers: Getting there and back is proven by the dependency; staying needs a reason to keep a rotation running, which is a motive question the tree asks elsewhere.
What this one is worth
If this happened tomorrow and nothing else changed, the chance that I live and work off Earth by 2071 goes from 0.5% to 0.7% (+0.2 points). If it turned out no, the same number goes to 0.0% (−0.5 points).
| Longevity scenario | baseline2071 ± 8 | moderate2080 | strong2095 | radical2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The headline as it stands | 0.5% | 1.2% | 3.8% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled yes now | 0.7% | 1.5% | 4.3% | 11% | 16% |
| If this settled no now | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
This is what the site says in advance, before the thing happens. When it does, the
ledger entry that records it quotes this figure beside what actually followed, so a
reader can see whether the prediction held. Worked out at the run
2026-10-11-scan by holding this step at each outcome in turn and
playing the whole tree out again, 20,000 times per
scenario. That is a throw of the dice, so a move smaller than about
0.10 points is inside the noise rather than
a finding.
What the ledger says about this step
- A crewed site beyond the Earth-Moon system now means at least five million kilometres from Earth, so nothing at the Moon can count 2026-10-03 The tree itself changed
- Forty-one steps had their criteria tightened so that two readers would agree when each has happened, with no number moved for that alone 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
The last 3 checks
Once a week the tree is read against the news, node by node, against the test above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every check ever made on this node is on the Radar page.
-
2026-11-01 Nothing new
No crewed site beyond the Earth-Moon system exists; the only year-long occupation found was NASA's CHAPEA ground simulation in Houston, ending October 31st, 2026, which does not meet the criterion.
-
2026-10-04 Nothing new
No site beyond the Earth-Moon system is crewed; a July 25th, 2026 multi-agency roadmap only plans a lunar base and crewed Mars around 2035.
-
2026-09-19 Nothing new
No site beyond the Earth-Moon system is crewed at all; the lunar Gateway, itself only cislunar, still plans stays of 30 to 60 days rather than continuous year-long occupation.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | 'beyond the Earth-Moon system' undefined; 'at least one crew rotation' could be read as a crew leaving with nobody arriving | farther from Earth than the Moon's orbit, excluding the Earth-Moon Lagrange points; at least one arrival of new occupants before any departure leaves the site empty | Step 27 outside-model review, item 75 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): the boundary and the rotation are now defined; the name already says what the criterion tests. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-25 | depends_on | D-crew-round-trip-to-mars | D-crew-round-trip-beyond-the-earth-moon-system | Candidate 5 of docs/proposal-function-over-route-2026-09-25.md, I approved September 25th, 2026: the crew round trip this site needs is any round trip beyond the Earth-Moon system, of which Mars is the likeliest; the Mars step was retired in favour of the widened one. Numbers unchanged. |
| 2026-10-03 | resolution | 'farther from Earth than the Moon's orbit, excluding the Earth-Moon Lagrange points' | at least five million kilometres from Earth | One of the questions the function-over-route pass left open (docs/runs/2026-10-02-estimates-ruled.md). The far side of the Moon is itself slightly farther than the Moon's orbit, so the old wording could be read to admit a lunar site. The boundary now matches the crewed round trip this step waits on. Proposed by Claude, decided October 3rd, 2026. The numbers were estimated for a site at Mars, in the Belt or farther, so no probability moved. |
Notes
Added at step 7 (September 8th, 2026) because no node covered Tier 3's beyond-the-Moon criterion. The criterion is deliberately inclusive: Mars, the asteroid belt, an outer moon, a free-flying habitat, or anywhere else beyond the Earth-Moon system all count, and any one of them resolves the node. Confirmed by me September 8th, 2026 that every kind of habitation at Tier 3's level should count.
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The record itself is data/D-drive.toml in the public repository.