Luna 2076 – The Geopolitics of Lunar Colonization

Crucial for Lunar Development: the Right of First Possession

August 3, 2026

If we’re serious about settling the Moon and exploiting its resources for the benefit of mankind, it will be crucial to secure property rights.

Nations can’t create a self-sustaining lunar economy through government procurement, argue John Chisholm and Dan Garretson in today’s Wall Street Journal. They will need entrepreneurs and investors. And entrepreneurs and investors will need assurances that the improvements they make won’t be stolen or expropriated.

To be self-sustaining, a lunar economy needs paying customers beyond the governments footing today’s bills, along with entrepreneurs to serve those customers and investors to fund the entrepreneurs. All need assurance that what they buy, build or fund remains theirs to use or transfer. At the lunar south pole, mines may someday harvest ice for rocket propellant, avoiding Earth launch costs. To attract investment, miners will need legal acknowledgment of first and continuous occupation, control over land use, the ability to exclude others and assurance that land and improvements can be sold or transferred. In short, ownership rights to lunar real estate.

The existing patchwork of treaties and statutes, write Chisolm, a trustee of the Santa Fe Institute, and Garretson, president of the nonprofit Orbital Progress, is inadequate. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 2015 U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA) provide some protection. But the 1979 Moon agreement — admittedly, never ratified by a major spacefaring nation — specifically disallows lunar land rights. The 2020 Artemis Accords’ “safety zones” guarantee the principle of “free access to all areas of celestial bodies” — the opposite of private property exclusion.

Economics and Earth’s Eighth Continent

August 2, 2026

Isaac Arthur gets it — he really gets it. He understands how economics — not the romance of exploration, or the nobility of science — will be the driving force behind the settlement of the Moon. I came across his recent post, “The Great Lunar Boom — Building a Civilization on the Moon,” and I recommend it highly for anyone seeking insight on how the population and development of the Moon as Earth’s “eighth continent” will unfold.

Many people view the Moon as a steppingstone — a kind of cosmic gas station where rocket ships can fuel up for trips to other planets and the stars. Arthur, president of the National Space Society and producer of the popular “Science and Futurism” YouTube channel, sees Earth’s satellite as an integral part of a larger Earth-Moon economic system.

“The Moon isn’t important because it helps us leave Earth,” he says. “It’s important because it’s the first place where leaving Earth actually starts to make economic sense.”

We tend to picture a space settlement as something driven by bold explorers and big destinations. But civilizations don’t grow that way. They grow because moving goods gets cheaper, energy becomes more abundant, infrastructure starts paying for itself, and people actually want to live there.

The first stage of lunar exploitation will be undertaken mainly by machines and robots. Human settlement will follow.

Nominated!

July 22, 2026

I am delighted to announce that my soon-to-be-published novel, “Trogs” has been nominated for the Prometheus Best Novel Award. Established in 1979, the Prometheus Awards recognize the best in libertarian-oriented science fiction and classic fiction.

“Trogs,” the sequel to “Dust Mites,” is scheduled for release Sept. 8. Set in the year 2075, both novels chronicle the stirrings of a second American revolution in colonies on the Moon.

There are several steps on the way to winning the award. I’ll keep readers posted as to my progress — assuming I progress, that is. (If I don’t make the cut, I’ll just drop the subject!)

Learn more about the Prometheus Awards here.

How to Blockade the Moon Without Really Trying

May 6, 2026

An illustration of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS), a spaceflight experiment designed to keep track of objects entering, operating in, or leaving cislunar space. (Image credit: U.S. Air Force Capt. David Buehler), by way of Space Insider.

To the layman, there looks to be a lot of wide-open space between Earth and the Moon, so the idea of someone conducting a Straits of Hormuz-style blockade of transit between the two is not a possibility that comes readily to mind. But Leonard David writing in Space Insider warns that it’s an all-too-real possibility.

Blockading cis-lunar space is not a problem we’ll need to worry about in the short term. But with the space economy on a geometric growth track, the Moon is destined to become an integral extension of Earth’s economy. Satellites, He-3 mining, solar power, data centers, chip fabrication and pharmaceutical manufacturing — you know the drill.

“Just as the Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway, cislunar space, though seemingly large, actually contains a few unique and exclusive points of transit through which all lunar travel must pass,” David quotes Marc Feldman, executive director of the Center for the Study of Space Crime, Piracy & Governance, as saying.

The article does not elaborate on what those choke points might be, However, CoPilot suggests the following:

The key “choke points” in cislunar space are the Lagrange points and the narrow gravitational transfer corridors that spacecraft must use to move efficiently between Earth and the Moon. These are the few stable or semi‑stable regions where traffic naturally concentrates, making them analogous to maritime chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz.

Second Edition

May 5, 2026

I’ve just published a second edition of Dust Mites. It’s got a snazzy new cover, it’s about 5,000 words tighter, and a cleaner layout means fewer pages.

The original sub-title was “The Battle for Air Lock Three.”

That fit the central drama just fine, but it didn’t do justice to the broader theme, which I’m developing in the sequel, “Trogs.” Both are/will be sub-titled “A Second American Revolution,” parts I and II in the Dust Mites saga.

Look for “Trogs” this summer.

An Exclusive Interview with the Author of “Dust Mites”

June 9, 2022

Bacon’s Rebellion was lucky enough to snag an interview with “Dust Mites” author Jim Bacon. As he is the blog contributor most familiar with the book, Bacon interviewed himself. — JAB

JAB: Thank you so much for granting this interview, Mr. Bacon. First, let’s dispense with formalities. Do you go by James?

JAB: Jim would be fine.

JAB: Your novel is set in the year 2075 when there are numerous American colonies on the Moon. The colonies — one in particular, Galileo Station — is chafing under the imperial rule of an out-of-touch Congress and imperial presidency in Washington, D.C. Do you think that’s a plausible scenario?

JAB: I picked the year 2075, only 50 years from now, for literary reasons. I was deliberately playing on the parallels with the American Revolution. The incident that precipitates the action in the novel — the dispatch of the U.S. Marshal’s Special Operations Group into the underground city of Galileo Station to arrest its governor to stand trial — plays a role analogous to the events at Lexington and Concord in sparking a rebellion.

While the date may be arbitrary, let me advance a few propositions: (1) human exploration of the Moon will be commonplace by the end of the decade; (2) colonization of the Moon for scientific, military and economic imperatives will soon follow; and (3) tensions inevitably will arise between the U.S. colonies and the imperial power. It is not implausible to think that the central government in Washington, D.C., will continue to accumulate power over the next half century and become more assertive and more authoritarian than ever.

The Most Fuel-Efficient Route to the Moon May Not Be a Straight Line

May 26, 2022

NASA soon will test a circuitous route to the Moon that takes its microwave oven-sized CubeSat satellite nearly a million miles into deep space to take advantage of gravitational forces that will allow it to reach the Moon with less expenditure of energy, the space agency reports.

The route, called a “near rectilinear halo orbit” (NHRO) works well in NASA’s computer simulations. CAPSTONE, short for the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations, will provide the first real-world test of NRHO dynamics. The mission is intended to support NASA’s Gateway, a multipurpose outpost that will support long-term lunar missions under the Artemis orbit.

While the gravity-driven track will longer to reach the Moon — four months — NASA says it will “dramatically reduce the amount of fuel this pathfinder CubeSat will need to fly there.” more “The Most Fuel-Efficient Route to the Moon May Not Be a Straight Line”

Data Centers in Lava Tubes — an Economic Driver for the Moon?

May 26, 2022

Lonestar Data Holdings, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., is closing $5 million in seed funding toward its goal of creating the ultimate in data-storage disaster recovery — with server farms located in lava tubes on the Moon.

The company has signed contracts to launch prototype demonstrations of its capabilities aboard lunar landers by the end of 2022. Lonestar will run a software-only test, storing a small big of data on an Intuitive Machines lander under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The mission is expected to last one lunar day, or two Earth weeks.

A second launch scheduled for 2023 will send an Intuitive Machines lander to the Moon’s South Pole to drill for ice. Included in the package will be Lonestar’s first hardware prototype: a one-kilogram storage device, the size of a hardback novel, with 16 terabytes of storage, reports The Register. more “Data Centers in Lava Tubes — an Economic Driver for the Moon?”

More Moon Ice Than Ever Previously Imagined?

May 26, 2022

Shackleton Crater, of primary interest for its suspected water deposits.

Scientists with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) a the University of Colorado at Boulder think the Moon may be awash in far more water than scientists previously believed, reports Universe Today.

LASP researchers created computer models to recreate conditions early in the Moon’s history. They discovered that ancient lunar volcanoes spewed huge volumes of water vapor, which settled to the surface. In craters near the poles that are permanently exposed to the heat of the sun, the water froze froze. The study suggests that the water could measure dozens or even hundreds of feet thick in places.

“It’s possible that 5 or 10 meters below the surface, you have big sheets of ice,” says co-author Paul Hayne. “It’s a potential bounty for future moon explorers who will need water to drink and process into rocket fuel.”

The study builds on previous work that estimated 25,000 square miles of the lunar surface could be capable of trapping and hanging onto ice.

If an Astronaut Kills Another Astronaut, Who You Going to Call?

April 30, 2022

What happens if a crime takes place on the Moon?

Well, Canada has amended its criminal code, reports Gizmodo, to allow for the prosecution of crimes committed by Canadian astronauts during trips to the Moon or on the lunar surface. Canada’s criminal code already covers crimes committed aboard the International Space Station.

This is not an entirely hypothetical concern. There are such things as Canadian astronauts. The Artemis 2 mission will include a Canadian astronaut, and Canada is contributing a robotic arm to the Lunar Gateway, a planned outpost around the Moon.

Governments normally assert judicial authority only over geographic areas that they control. No one claims control over lunar territory, much less cislunar space. Canada’s extension of its legal writ may set precedents for other governments.