The tree · Regime · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 5 to 20 years
A crewed lunar program keeps flying across two changes of its government
Every large space program since Apollo has been redrawn or cancelled by a new administration. A program that keeps its funding and keeps flying hardware across two changes of the government that pays for it has become an institution rather than a policy, which is what a multi-decade build needs. Any nation's or company's crewed lunar program counts, because lunar material at scale can come from anyone's program; the US program is the one to watch first. It gates the Slow Expanse through lunar material at scale.
The test: what counts as it having happened
A crewed lunar program (a national program or a company's program with a national anchor customer) receives its yearly funding and flies crewed hardware in each of two successive governments after the one in office when it first flew crew, a change of government meaning a change in the head of government, or for a company program a change in the head of its anchor customer's government. A program that is cancelled and later restarted, or a different nation's program that reaches the mark, resolves the node when it gets there.
Settled by: The funding nation's appropriations records and the program's flight record
Replaced
Replaced by A crewed lunar program, government or commercial, keeps flying across two changes of its principal backer.
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75% | 80% | 85% | 90% | 92% |
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: With any nation's program counting and a restart still able to resolve it, the question is whether some crewed lunar program anywhere becomes an institution over forty-five years; two rival national programs and a flying commercial lander make that likely, and the longer windows add more attempts. Proposed with the rewording, September 19th, 2026.
What the ledger says about this step
- 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 test for a lunar programme surviving a change of government was rewritten to count any nation's programme, not one country's 2026-09-19 The tree itself changed
The last check
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.
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2026-09-19 No change
Artemis hardware progress continued in the window (the Artemis IV SLS boattail arrived at Kennedy Space Center on August 31st, 2026, and Artemis III stacking and an Orion trajectory fix were reported in September), and the proposed FY2027 budget raises Artemis funding from about 7.8 to 8.5 billion dollars, with a 2025 reconciliation bill already locking in roughly 4.1 billion dollars a year for SLS and Orion through fiscal year 2029. China's Long March 10 and Mengzhou hardware also continues testing toward a 2029-2030 crewed landing with no funding disruption reported. None of this yet tests a transition across a change of government, so it does not move the number.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | US program only; a single cut before two administrations had passed resolved the node no for good | any nation's or company's crewed lunar program; a cancelled program can be restarted and a different program can reach the mark | First run (docs/runs/2026-09-19-first-run.md): as a Tier 1 requirement and a hard dependency of lunar material at scale, a permanent no from one US budget cut foreclosed an outpost by anyone. On September 19th, 2026 I reworded it to a durable, nation-agnostic form. |
| 2026-09-19 | probability | 0.60 flat across scenarios | 0.75 / 0.80 / 0.85 / 0.90 / 0.92 | Re-estimated against the reworded criterion, which can resolve later and by more programs; no longer flat because the longer windows now add attempts. |
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | 'for the US program, counting from 2026, that means two successive presidential administrations after the current one'; 'change of government' undefined | the counting-from-2026 sentence dropped; a change of government means a change in the head of government, or for a company program in its anchor customer's government | Step 27 outside-model review, item 84 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): the 2026 sentence assumed crew first flew in 2026 and could contradict the general clause if the first crewed flight slips, and non-democracies needed a definition. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-25 | description | 'counts, because Tier 1 is an outpost by anyone' | 'counts, because lunar material at scale can come from anyone's program ... It gates the Slow Expanse through lunar material at scale.' | Methodology pass item 97 (docs/methodology-pass-2026-09-25.md), decided September 25th, 2026: Tier 1 is now tested by the hundred-workers node alone, so this node no longer feeds Tier 1 directly; it still gates Tier 3 through L-lunar-material-delivered-to-orbit-at-scale. Text only; no number changed. |
| 2026-09-25 | status | open | superseded by R-crewed-lunar-program-outlives-two-changes-of-backer | Candidate 3 of docs/proposal-function-over-route-2026-09-25.md, I approved September 25th, 2026: the criterion widens to a program, government or commercial, that outlives two changes of its principal backer. This node's numbers were published, so it is retired and replaced rather than renamed (docs/methodology.md, 'What is fixed and what moves'); lunar material at scale now depends on the replacement. |
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The record itself is data/R-regime.toml in the public repository.