Space governance you can step inside.
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Atlas · Moon
Where lunar claims will meet.
For fifty years the Moon was somewhere a few nations visited and left. Now two frameworks are heading back to the same small place: the south pole, where water ice could make staying possible. Drag to turn the Moon, tap a site to see who was there and when, and open it in AR on your own device.
Why the south pole is where it gets hard
The next era of the Moon runs through two frameworks: the United States-led Artemis Accords and the China and Russia-led International Lunar Research Station. Both concentrate on the lunar south pole, where permanently shadowed craters may hold water ice, and neither is bound to deconflict with the other. The Outer Space Treaty says no nation may claim the Moon, but it does not say who yields when two programs want the same ridge.
Read the full comparison →Who has been, and who is going
Data & method
What this is.
A real NASA Moon
The Moon uses NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery, shown here as an educational 3D globe and, in AR, as NASA’s 3D model through Apple’s Quick Look. Moon imagery: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio (CGI Moon Kit), from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data. AR model: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Real sites, approximate pins
The landing sites and their actors are real and verifiable; the marker positions are placed by latitude and longitude and are approximate, so treat them as where, not to-the-metre precision.
A reading, not a claim
Naming two frameworks that both target the south pole describes the coordination problem. It takes no position on whose plan should prevail; the detailed, sourced comparison lives in the explainer.