Safety Zones and the Crowded South Pole
Why are so many missions heading to the same few square kilometres near the lunar south pole, and what happens when they meet?
Chapter summary
The south pole combines the three things a base needs: ridges lit 80–90% of the time for power, permanently shadowed craters that may hold ice, and periods of Earth visibility for communications.
Key takeaways
- 1
But the best spots are small, perhaps a few square kilometres each on the most-lit rims, and NASA's candidate regions overlap with China's targets for Chang'e 7, Chang'e 8 and the ILRS.
- 2
The Artemis Accords introduced "safety zones" around operations to avoid harmful interference; China has not signed them.
- 3
Setcoin's view is that site competition, not resource scarcity, is the first real geopolitical friction on the Moon, and that it will arise around 2028–2032, when both sides land infrastructure.
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