The tree · Regime · Happens to the world · Plays out over the whole window
The United States and China both recognise the same rules for owning what is mined off Earth
Nobody will spend a decade building a mine on the Moon if another power can call the ore stolen. A common framework for who may extract and own off-Earth resources, whether a treaty or matching national laws, is what lets the motive nodes attract long money.
The test: what counts as it having happened
A treaty in force, or national laws whose provisions mutually recognise each other, gives the United States and China (and at least one of the European Union, India, or Russia) the same rules on ownership of extracted material, its transfer, and the settlement of disputes at off-Earth sites, as documented in the treaty record or the enacted statutes.
Settled by: The treaty record or the enacted statutes
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45% | 55% | 70% | 85% | 90% |
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: Two rival frameworks today; convergence usually follows the first real mine. An outside model's 70 percent by 2070 (Astra, September 19th, 2026) was for transferable rights among major jurisdictions without requiring the United States and China to match.
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% | 1.4% | 4.1% | 12% | 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
- 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
The COPUOS working group on space resources published a September 2026 consolidated draft of non-binding principles with intersessional meetings under way, and no US-China mutual recognition exists. Nothing meets the treaty or mutual-recognition criterion.
-
2026-10-04 Nothing new
No treaty or mutually recognising laws on extracted-resource ownership appeared; China has no space-resources statute and still criticises the Artemis Accords.
-
2026-09-19 No change
A September 19th, 2026 legal analysis and other 2026 commentary confirm the United States (the Artemis Accords, 67 signatories) and China (the International Lunar Research Station coalition with Russia) remain on separate legal tracks for off-Earth resource rights, with commentators calling for a treaty that does not yet exist. This confirms continued divergence rather than any movement toward alignment.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | 'the same rules for extracting and owning resources', rights unlisted | the same rules on ownership of extracted material, its transfer, and the settlement of disputes | Step 27 outside-model review, item 85 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): 'same rules' could mean identical statutes or merely compatible rights; naming the three rights is a cheap clarification still measurable from statute text. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
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The record itself is data/R-regime.toml in the public repository.