Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

GOVERNMENT

According to the International Lunar Treaty of 2036, no country from earth may stake a territorial claim to any part of the moon. Thus, the moon has no official government. Instead, all lunarnauts are technically residents of their sovereign nations, and the laws of each base are dictated by the nations that built them. MBA is therefore governed by the laws of the United States of America.

The system for governing MBA was modeled after the successful system at McMurdo Station, the American scientific outpost in Antarctica. The moon-base commander (or MBC) serves as the de facto mayor, handling all issues to the best of his or her ability. The MBC’s decisions should be regarded as the final say in all conflicts and disputes. In the unlikely event that an issue arises that is beyond the capacity of the MBC, then it can be appealed to the city government of Houston, Texas, home of NASA Lunar Command at the Johnson Space Center.

It should be stated, however, that the residents of MBA have all been carefully selected for friendliness and compatibility, and thus there ought to be a minimum of conflict—if there are even any conflicts at all!