Moon Tourist Refuses to Return to Earth

Despite the Shackleton Settlement’s best efforts, the tourist, nicknamed Crusoe, is refusing to board any return flight and has extended his two week stay to well over three months. At first, Crusoe could not leave Moon because his return flight reservation fell through, but now he is deliberately avoiding the boarding. He is enjoying free food and shelter that the Moon base authorities are legally obligated to provide. 

Crusoe, apparently well-versed in Moon law, claims that there is no legal mechanism in place to force him to leave the base. If a tourist refuses to board their return flight, there is nothing that the Shackleton Settlement’s authorities can do about it legally. All they can do for now is hope that he gets bored and decides to leave. 

Meanwhile the majority of the current Shackleton team are scheduled to return to Earth for mandatory gravity re-acclimatization, a trip that will leave the base almost empty for over a month. During this time only a skeleton crew will stay to work and maintain the base. Authorities hope that the lack of company from fellow recreational astronauts will prompt the overstayed visitor to take the last shuttle home to Earth. Crusoe, however, claims that he is  “looking forward to the time alone” on the mostly empty base. 

To complicate matters, Crusoe does not own or rent a house back on Earth. Shackleton Base follows the US  jurisdiction where it is illegal to evict a homeless person. Sources say that the authorities are working to re-home the tourist on Earth, as a much cheaper option compared to his stay on the Moon. Nevertheless, Crusoe is still adamant on staying. He has moved away from the commercial part of the station and now the government is on the hook to foot his bill. 

In the most recent development Crusoe is planning to build his own 1G centrifuge for sleep cycle. It could be a potential work around the mandatory recuperation in Earth gravity everyone has to go through every 4 months. If successful, he might not need  to return to Earth, ever. While authorities are discussing the legal ways to move the long-overstayed tourist back, he might enter the history books as the first ever Moon squatter.