Four and a half billion years ago another planet smashes into the Earth sending a huge chunk

of molten rock out into space which coalesces into a planetoid 1/4 the size of the Earth which we now call, the Moon. As a result of the collision large amounts of Iron ore are raised to the Earth's surface which together with carbon and sulphur, are critical to the production of the building blocks of life... in the form of nucleic acids. The Earth is spinning so fast that a day only lasts five hours but the new Moon's gravitational field starts to slow the Earth down eventually, to a 24 hour day. Oceans form as the earth cools down and the pull of the Moon drags the water around the globe in the form of tides. The tidal action of washing and drying creates chemical reactions which form RNA more life building essentials. As the Earth slows down the Moon speeds up and moves away to it's current position (but it's still moving away at a rate of 3cm a year). The Moon stabilises the Earth keeping it inclined at 23.4 degrees. This in turn enables the Sun's light to be evenly spread across the Earth (so no place is either critically too hot or too cold) and creates the seasonal cycle, vital to the life process. The Moon protects the Earth, attracting meteors and comets, away from it. The far side of the Moon is far more littered with impact craters, than the side we see. Without the Moon the Earth would wobble on its axis and eventually tip over, (which we now believe happened to Mars). The Moon regulates the seasons, the weather patterns and even the cycles of life itself, on Earth. The Moon takes 27.32 days to orbit the Earth but it also takes exactly the same amount of time to rotate on it's own axis so the Moon appears not to rotate at all, keeping the same face, toward us. The Sun is 400 times bigger than the Moon but it's also 400 times further away, so they both appear exactly the same size in the sky above, giving us a perfect Solar eclipse. We now know, there are large amounts of water in the form of ice at the Lunar poles. Everything we need to build a base on the Moon and manufacture materials.. is already there. If we placed solar panels on the Moon in permanent Sunlight and beamed the energy back to Earth in the form of microwaves we'd have a limitless supply of electrical energy. We could do this now, for the same cost that oil company's spend over two to three

years extracting oil from the Earth! I've always loved the Moon. The Moon is magical. The Moon created us, protects us and holds the answer to our survival. And in a billion years time, when the Moon has moved too far away, the Moon will destroy us because without her, life cannot survive on the Earth. The ancients knew the power of the Moon modern man knew it, only too briefly. We need to re-discover the Moon.