"Research by Jacques Laskar and colleagues at the Bureau des Longitudes in Paris shows that the Moon's considerable gravity acts as a stabilizing anchor on Earth. Without the Moon, subtle gravitational effects from the other planets (mainly Jupiter) over millions of years would play havoc with the tilt of Earth's spin axis. Instead of the current 23.5-degree tilt, wich gives us our moderate seasonal variation and wich varies by only 2.6 degrees over a 41,000-year period, the axial tilt would fluctuate chaotically between 0 and 85 degrees over millions of years. Earth's climate would experience eons of wild seasonal variation, followed by periods with none at all. Such unstable environmental conditions would probably lead to either a runaway greenhouse effect, which heats Venus' surface to a hellish 450 degrees Celsius, or runaway glaciation, which would plunge Earth into a permanent ice age."
Sounds like the moon is pretty useful... but hopefully in a billion years we'll either
a) not be around (second coming, exodus)
or
b) be able to push the moon back into orbit (which would require tremendous amounts of energy).
Viper Out