In The Moon David Whitehouse explains how our nearest celestial neighbor was created (and what moonrocks tell us of its earth-shattering origins), and how its existence may have been a crucial factor in mankind being here at all. Whitehouse discusses how man has related to it, worshipped it and blamed it for his own 'lunacy' - though can it really affect our behavior? He tells how the first person to look at the moon through a telescope was not Galileo, as is commonly believed, but an Englishman who knew Shakespeare and had a part in the Gunpowder Plot.
While some of the story of the modern moon race may be known, the first moon race to map its surface has not been charted before, and is one of the most dramatic and unexpected stories in science. The recent discovery of ice hidden in the moon's polar regions opens up new possibilities for space travel that mean it is essential that mankind returns there if we are ever to journey to the rest of the solar system.