The moon could have its own holy ark and Sefer Torah within three years, thanks to a crowd-funded initiative to land a sacred scroll on the lunar surface.

The Torah on the Moon project is asking people worldwide, Jewish and non-Jewish, to "buy" a letter in the specially-designed, 5in Torah, which will be launched in an unmanned spacecraft and left on the moon in a special capsule-like ark.

"The idea is to put the Torah on the ultimate pedestal," said Elie Klein, spokesman for the project, which is being run as a business but will funnel "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to educational organisations in various countries.

"Admittedly, this has something of a stunt about it, but the point is that the Torah is truly out of this world," said Mr Klein, adding that the hope is that when people know there is a Torah on the moon, it will have more prominence in people's thoughts.

Each of the Torah's letters - almost 305,000 - is for sale at $18, with an 80 per cent refund if the scroll fails to launch. The plan is for the Torah to hitch a ride with a space agency mission or on a craft operated by the winner of the open-to-all Google Lunar XPRIZE competition.