The history of lunar exploration began in 1959, just two years after the launch of Sputnik 1. In the space of just two months the USSR and the USA had both sent missions to successfully fly past the Moon (Luna 1 and Pioneer 4 respectively).

For the next decade, east/west rivalry fuelled an unparalleled period of discovery. In 1966 alone no fewer than nine missions were launched to the Moon. The Soviets made much of the running, following up the first fly-by with the first impact, the first lander, the first orbiter, the first return probe and the first rover. Their Luna series was to run for an unmatched 24 missions.

But ultimately, these achievements would all be overshadowed. The change began on 25^th May 1961, when President John F Kennedy announced America's intention of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth". The US' Ranger probes were followed by the Surveyor landers, whose mission was to establish suitable landing sites. Finally came the Apollo missions - a herculean effort involving over a million people and culminating in Apollo 11. On 20^th July 1969, watched by an estimated one billion people world-wide, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, posthumously fulfilling Kennedy's dream and effectively winning the Space Race for America.

Whilst the motivation for most of this activity was political, the scientists involved were determined to take the opportunity to learn as much as possible. The later Apollo "J" missions in particular were designed to carry a much heavier experimantal payload, and the crew of the final mission, Apollo 17, included professional geologist Harrison Schmitt.

The data gathered during these years fed a great deal of scientific discovery, and much is still being learnt today as newer techniques are applied, but none of this was enough to sustain government commitment. Public apathy coupled with the $25 billion price tag for Apollo led to its demise in 1972, and three years later the USSR also launched its final Moon mission.

Apart from a brief flyby by Galileo, en-route to Jupiter, and the launch of Japan's Hiten orbiter, both in 1990, the Moon remained unvisited for nearly two decades.

Then in 1994 the obiter Clementine, sponsored by the US Department of Defense to test multispectral surveying systems, found tell-tale traces of cometary water ice in pockets around the Moon's poles, and rekindled interest in lunar exploration. It has already been followed by NASA's Lunar Prospector, with enhanced surveying techniques, and a further four missions have been scheduled by Japan and Europe.

The discovery of water is immensely significant to to future of lunar exploration. It makes the establishment of a permanent colony more practical, but this is still a tremendously expensive proposition. Certainly little will happen without a breakthrough in space travel technology. Several new ideas are being worked on, and with luck one of these might even bring the cost of lunar travel into the realm of the rich adventurers who would otherwise be ballooning around the world. Already one commercial craft has carried out a lunar flyby (HGS 1 in 1998) although this was really just an innovative way to recover a malfunctioning telecommunications satellite.