The tree · Regime · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 5 to 20 years
Space spending recovers within three years of the next recession
Downturns are when long builds get cut. The test is whether, after the next US recession, the government's exploration and space-operations budget and the largest private launch company's flight rate come back to where they were rather than being cut and left there. A dip is allowed; what the tree needs is that the field keeps its funding across the business cycle. The node looks forward: the 2008 and 2020 downturns are the reason the number is high, not the event it waits for. It is tested at every recession that ends after September 19th, 2026 and resolves yes the first time the field comes through one.
The test: what counts as it having happened
Within three calendar years after the end of the first US recession that ends after September 19th, 2026, as dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research, or of any later recession if that one fails the test: the sum of NASA's Exploration and Space Operations appropriations for a fiscal year equals or exceeds the highest annual total of that sum in the three fiscal years before the recession began, in nominal dollars, and the yearly orbital launch count of the US provider that flew the most orbital launches in the last full calendar year before the recession began equals or exceeds that provider's highest annual count in the three calendar years before the recession began. Resolves yes at the first recession that passes both tests; a recession that fails leaves the node open for the next.
Settled by: NBER recession dates, the enacted NASA appropriations for the Exploration and Space Operations accounts, and public orbital launch logs
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80% | 82% | 85% | 90% | 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: The 2008 and 2020 downturns both saw space budgets and launch counts recover within three years, and the private flight rate is carried by constellation customers; the residual is a downturn deep enough to restructure the field. Rises slowly because every added recession is another chance to pass. Numbers stand under the forward-looking reword of September 19th, 2026, which already priced a future recession.
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 0.5% (too small to tell apart from chance). 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 | 0.5% | 1.3% | 3.9% | 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
- The test for space spending recovering after a recession was rewritten to wait for the next recession, because on its own words it had already passed in 2020 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
- The test for space spending surviving a recession was rewritten to ask whether funding comes back, not whether it never dips 2026-09-19 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 NBER recession dating was found for 2026. FY2027 NASA appropriations coverage (House committee bill of May 13th, 2026) predates the window and no enacted figure was found.
-
2026-10-04 Nothing new
No NBER recession dating or end date appeared; the US is not officially in recession, with forecasters citing risk around 30 percent.
-
2026-09-19 Nothing new
The National Bureau of Economic Research has not declared a recession in 2026; the US remains in the expansion dated from April 2020, so there is no recession to test the node against.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | budget and launch count must not fall more than ten percent during the recession year itself; a fail was permanent | budget and launch count are back within ten percent within three years after the recession; a fail leaves the node open for the next recession | First run (docs/runs/2026-09-19-first-run.md): as a hard dependency of a hundred people working off Earth, a permanent no from one bad budget year foreclosed that node in every later decade. On September 19th, 2026 I reworded it to a durable form. |
| 2026-09-19 | probability | 0.55 flat across scenarios | 0.80 / 0.82 / 0.85 / 0.90 / 0.90 | Re-estimated against the reworded criterion; recovery within three years is a much easier test than no dip at all, and later recessions add chances. |
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | any US recession, no start date, so the 2020 recession counted; 'within ten percent of its pre-recession level in real terms', basket and provider unspecified | the first US recession that ends after 2026-09-19 (structural: the criterion changed after estimation); recovery means equalling or exceeding the highest annual total of the three pre-recession years, in nominal dollars; the basket is NASA's Exploration and Space Operations accounts; the provider is the US provider with the most orbital launches in the last pre-recession year | Step 27 outside-model review, items 23, 88 and 89 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): on the plain reading the node had already resolved on the 2020 recession (budget about 102 percent of 2019 on Astra's basket; launches 13 in 2019 and 31 in 2021, which the 'within ten percent' band perversely failed); I chose option (b), reword to the next recession with the floor and the fixed basket, keep it open, numbers stand, logged as structure, so the node keeps guarding the hundred-workers node against the next downturn. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-19 | name | Space spending recovers within three years of a recession | Space spending recovers within three years of the next recession | Step 27 outside-model review, item 89: the name now says the node looks forward. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
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The record itself is data/R-regime.toml in the public repository.