Making the moon mine (Image: View China Photo/Rex Features)

LAST week, NASA bombed the moon. Or rather, it crashed its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite into the moon’s south pole in a bid to discover reserves of water and other resources.

This was the latest in a veritable flurry of moon missions: between 2007 and 2011 there will have been eight: one from Japan, two from China, one from India, one from Russia and three from the US.

The race back to the moon has been prompted by the realisation that exploiting it may now be within reach. And …