A State of the Moon

We used to dream of living on the Moon. We landed, explored, and forgot how to return.

It's time to boldly dream again. It's time to return the Moon.

On the Moon we will advance the economy, scientific progress, and space exploration.

If we intend to live there, we must be represented there. The Moon must become a state of the Union, constitutional, democratic, and openly administered. Then unified as the Moon State of America.

Present law is poorly embraced, permits many activities, and blocks one core thing: territorial expansion. You cannot claim lunar land as sovereign territory. You can govern registered habitats and crews, hold elections inside them, own what you extract, and coordinate safety zones to prevent harmful interference while welcoming inspection. We demand a charter for the people. And then, by the consent of nations and settlers, a full constitution for the whole Moon.

The future our forefathers never imagined is a commonwealth under Earthlight.

Autonomous, highspeed freeway arcs between cities. A robot workforce augmenting skilled human laborers. Municipal bonds building electromagnetic launch rails. Courts trying crimes on the rim of Shackleton. Schools in pressure domes. When the children of Earth look up to the stars, the Moon will is a beacon of liberty and exceptionalism for all mankind.

And a civic holiday on the day the first child is born under one-sixth gravity.

American civics extended.

We have the ambition, capital, and technology.

It's time to rewrite the rules and change the game.

The Opportunity

The Moon's surface area is about 14.7 million sq miles (roughly the Americas combined) and its gravity is 16.5% of Earth's, with a mean radius of 1,079 mi and diameter of 2,158 mi.¹²³

Because almost all resources needed for life support and industry must come from local ice, regolith, and sunlight, practical settlement starts at the poles where water-ice and near-continuous light coexist. Only a few thousand square kilometers meet both criteria today, yet those locations can support tens of thousands of people once industrial infrastructure and heavy automation mature.

Early outposts of tens, then hundreds, of crew in the 2030s grow to multi-purpose towns of 10,000+ by mid-century, staffed by fleets of autonomous excavators and haulers at ratios of 5-20 robots per human. A polar colony provides exportable fuels, helium-3, and manufacturing feedstocks while offering radio-quiet far-side astronomy and a low-gravity shipyard for deep-space exploration — capabilities impossible from Earth.

Conservative financial models show lunar commodities and logistics slicing launch costs and creating new revenue streams within a space economy projected to top $1 trillion this decade.

Investment Areas

High-latitude "peaks of extended sunlight" on crater rims receive illumination up to 90% of the lunar year, while adjacent permanently shadowed craters trap billions of tons of ice. The combined contiguous area with both light and ice is under 1,160 sq mi today, about the size of Los Angeles.⁶

These sites, primarly around Shackleton and nearby craters, offer daytime temperatures near -58° F instead of the ±216° F swings common at mid-latitudes. Over decades, in-situ construction — sintered-regolith berms, buried habitats, basalts melted into shielding blocks — can open mid-latitude mare plains, eventually allowing habitation of at least 5% of the surface (~734,000 sq mi).⁷⁸⁹

Radiation and micrometeoroid hazards of the remainder require 6.6-9.8 ft of regolith shielding or underground placement.¹⁰

Top Roles and Salaries

Life-support, mining, and power dominate head-count because they underwrite survival and export revenue. Science retains a large share as it drives innovation, patents, and prestige. Community, governance, and services stay lean, buttressed by automation and low-gravity logistics that simplify goods movement.

A settlement staffed along these lines can grow predictably. Each new tranche of miners and habitat engineers unlocks resources and pressurized volume for the next wave of residents, while the service sectors scale just enough to keep morale high and operations safe.

Pilot Outpost, Years 0-10

Every person wears multiple hats. A life-support engineer may double as EVA technician. Scientists rotate through rover maintenance shifts. Nearly all surface tasks rely on 200 semi-autonomous robots tele-operated from the habitat.

Industrial Village, Years 10-25

Permanent mining and power divisions emerge. Dedicated construction crews expand lava-tube interiors while agricultural techs ramp closed-loop food output. Population growth is paced by how fast ISRU delivers water, oxygen, and building mass.

City-State, Years 25-50

The economy diversifies. Heavy industry and research draw talent from Earth, while education, retail, and cultural roles appear once families stay long-term. Robots rise to ~13 per human, covering routine inspection, hauling, and exterior repairs so people focus on higher-order design, science, and governance.

Phase I — The Democratic Settlement Protocol

Replace pieties and loopholes with law. Amend the Outer Space Treaty and harden the Artemis Accords into enforceable rules that create Lunar Governance Zones (LGZs) around permanent settlements and give the United States a clean, inspectable mandate to govern where its citizens actually live.

Phase I is the ramp to legitimacy: rules, courts, elections, and public works.

Settlers gain rights and services.

Rivals gain predictable access and inspections.

The habit of Moon government takes root.

Phase II — The Sovereign Lunar State Treaty (SLST)

Having proven democratic administration in LGZs, we finish the arc.

The Parties agree, openly, by signature, to constitute the entire lunar surface and subsoil as a single US state, with permanent guarantees for access, inspection, and science. No ambiguity, no vacuum, no "first come, first carve."

Competing nations are barred from planting paper sovereignties or carving rival zones.

The Moon becomes one jurisdiction, one constitution, one electorate.

This is annexation by consent and inspection, not by fiat.

It prevents competing nations from planting paper sovereignties or erecting "facts on the ground." It makes the first permanent city off-world an open republic.

Others keep access. The Moon keeps a constitution.

From Vote to Voice

When America moves first, humanity moves forward. Louisiana doubled with a signature. Texas joined as a state by resolution. California vaulted to statehood inside two years.

The transcontinental railroad spanned a continent in seven. A President set a goal in 1961 and Americans walked the Moon in eight. The same country can constitutionalize a city under Earthlight and seat its senators faster than critics can invent excuses.

Leave a vacuum, and no other nation will marry open elections with engineering at scale. Fill it, and again humanity witnesses what American exceptionalism will build.

Precedents for speed — Texas annexed and admitted in 1845, California admitted 1850, the 26th Amendment ratified in about 100 days, the transcontinental railroad 1862–1869, Apollo 1961–1969 — prove that when America decides, the calendar obeys.

Free government is not a spectator sport and the window is closing. Authoritarian systems will not wait for our slow committees. If the first serious settlement is built in the image of a single party, the rest of the century will be spent unlearning it. We have a proven kit for liberty at scale: clear legislation, courts upholding law, and elections that fire the inept.

A Call to Action

Sign. Share. Demand.

Talk to your friends online. Invite them to your house. Talk to your family.

Let the idea — Moon is a state — become something we all expect.

Tell your representatives to introduce the Democratic Settlement Protocol now and send the Non-Terrestrial Statehood Amendment to the states.

Insist on drafting and adopting the Sovereign Lunar State Treaty that makes the entire Moon the Moon State of America — with access for all, elections for residents, and inspections for trust. This is the American way to expand humanity: bold, lawful, fast.

A weekday morning, a third-grade classroom, a map with more than continents and oceans on it. Students recite the states — Alabama to Wyoming — and, without a pause, the Moon.

Shape the future.