Nasa warned that the Moon's resources could soon be 'destroyed'

Nasa is preparing to step up lunar exploration efforts once again with the commercial Peregrine mission launching this week, but the organisation has been warned that the Moon’s resources are at risk.

Plenty of probes will be sent to the surface over the coming years as interested parties vie for control of resources.

But Nasa and other astronomers have been warned that the long term effects of exploiting the moon's resources could have a serious impact on important scientific research.

Martin Elvis is from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian. He told the Observer that “the issue has become urgent”.

“We need to act now because decisions made today will set the tone for our future behaviour on the moon.”

The idea was also shared with the publication by astronomer Professor Richard Green from the University of Arizona. He said: “We are not trying to block the building of lunar bases.

"However, there are only a handful of promising sites there and some of these are incredibly precious scientifically. We need to be very, very careful where we build our mines and bases.”

Green added: “The trouble is that it takes a long time to make changes to UN treaties, so we have to act now if we are to have a hope of making sure we have international agreements in place to protect the unique scientific features of the moon and ensure they are not destroyed through thoughtless exploitation.”

It comes as a privately built US lander is set to land on the moon on Monday (January 8). The "Peregrine" lander, developed by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, would be the first commercial mission to successfully touch down on the moon, and the first US-backed mission in more than 50 years since the end of the Apollo project.

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings