Space is no longer the untouched frontier we once imagined. Crowded with satellites, threatened by debris, and on the verge of a new era of extraction, outer space faces a crisis of governance.

On International Moon Day, Voice of Commons host Giulia Foscari speaks with Michael Byers — Co-Director of the Outer Space Institute and author of Who Owns Outer Space? — to explore the urgent legal and ethical dilemmas shaping the cosmos. Together, they unpack the risks of mega-constellations, uncontrolled rocket re-entries, and the race for lunar resources, while asking: how can international law evolve fast enough to keep space a peaceful and equitable domain?

Michael Byers is a world-leading space expert that addresses grand challenges facing the continued use and exploration of space. He is the Co-Director of the Outer Space Institute and holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. Michael has been a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University; Professor of Law at Duke University; Visiting Professor at the universities of Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Nord (Norway) and Novosibirsk (Russia) as well as the Geneva Graduate Institute; and Senior Global Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is the co-author, with Aaron Boley, of Who Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space. Michel Byers was born at 321 parts per million carbon dioxide in the Atmosphere.

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