AC Grayling: Who Owns the Moon?

We are delighted to welcome to the stage Professor AC Grayling discussing his new book Who Owns the Moon?.

Does history give us confidence that humankind's rapidly approaching commercial exploitation and perhaps colonisation of the moon and Mars will be peaceful and constructive, instead of a further reason for conflict, trouble and wars? 

If we look at the precedents - at humanity's 'common inheritance' of such places as the Antarctic and the world's oceans - we must ask: How well have we succeeded in avoiding international competition and conflicts over them? In general, how well do international agreements work?

The history of 'gold rushes' and the infamous 'Scramble for Africa' in the 19th century are troubling examples of what could go wrong in space.

How shall we avoid that happening? Who Owns the Moon? examines these questions and the precedents set by recent history to ask: What should be done to avoid competition in space becoming conflict on earth?

AC Grayling CBE MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSA FRSL is the Founder and Principal of New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, and is Professor of Philosophy. He is also a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He is the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. He was for a number of years a columnist on the Guardian, the Times, and Prospect magazine.

He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC radios 4, 3 and the World Service, for which he did the annual Exchanges at the Frontier series; and he has often appeared on television.

He has twice been a judge on the Booker Prize, in 2014 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Vice President of Humanists UK, Patron of the Defence Humanists, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society, and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.