The tree · Regime · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 5 to 20 years
The United States and China recognise each other's keep-out zones around off-Earth installations
Nobody will run a mine or a plant on the Moon if a rival can land next to it. The Artemis Accords already describe "safety zones" around surface operations, recognised by one bloc; China's programme has its own partners and its own rules. Mutual, formal recognition by the two powers that will actually be there of each other's right to keep others out of a zone around an installation is the piece of law a product sold at a profit from out there stands on, and it is distinct from who owns what is dug up.
The test: what counts as it having happened
The United States and China are each party to an instrument (a treaty, a bilateral or multilateral agreement, or matching enacted laws that name each other) under which each formally recognises the other's right to declare and enforce keep-out or safety zones around its off-Earth surface installations, as documented in the treaty record or the enacted text.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50% | 60% | 72% | 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 2026-09-20.
Why these numbers: One bloc already practises safety zones and the other will need them the day it has an installation to protect, so the incentive runs both ways; what holds it at even odds by 2071 is that formal mutual recognition between these two powers on anything has been rare for a decade, and a tacit arrangement would not resolve the node. Proposed by Claude 2026-09-20 with the node's addition, accepted by John.
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% | 1.4% | 4.2% | 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.
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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2026-10-04 Nothing new
No US-China instrument recognising each other's keep-out zones appeared; September 2026 commentary (NASA chief Isaacman) concerned racing to the lunar surface, not an agreement.
Notes
Added 2026-09-20 under step 27, item 19 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md, ruled 2026-09-19): raised by Gemini as a missing node; a dependency of M-off-earth-product-sold-at-a-profit (see item 80). Distinct from R-off-earth-resource-rights-recognised-by-major-powers, which is about ownership of extracted material.
Think this is wrong, missing something it depends on, or badly estimated?
Open an issue about it, or read
how feedback gets folded into the tree.
The record itself is data/R-regime.toml in the public repository.