oblivion - How did the Tet destroy Earth's moon?

Simple question. Is it ever explained how the Tet succeeded in destroying the moon ? I can't recall this being explained.

Answer

We are never given the official path to the moon's apparent destruction. We know the alien invaders are somehow responsible, mining the moon, apparently destructively, before turning their attentions toward invading the Earth.

The IMDb Oblivion synopsis provides us with:

In the year 2077, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), is a drone technician living in a tower high above the clouds, with his assigned partner Victoria/Vika (Andrea Riseborough). They are the last people left on Earth after it was destroyed by aliens known as the Scavengers/'Scavs', who wanted Earth's resources. The Scavs destroyed Earth's moon for material resources, which caused a series of natural disasters and global devastation, then they invaded.

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  The destruction of sections of the moon was supposedly a prelude to the alien attack on the Earth.

  
  


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  Given the ability to destroy as much of the moon as they did, the resulting debris should have showered down upon the Earth creating fantastic devastation from earthquakes to tsunami rendering a good portion of the planet unpleasant to live on, at best, a nightmare of catastrophic proportions at worst. Humanity would be poorly equipped to resist an alien invasion with its most populous cities underwater or smashed by tidal waves from falling moon debris.

  
  



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  However, the movie's design artists fail to take account of the natural movement of matter in space, the remnants of the moon after sixty years should have taken up a ring like position around the planet.

  
  


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  Not to mention how the chunk of moon to the far left got there. An explosion would have sent such a fragment UNDER the moon from our perspective. The only way you get a piece over to the left was to hit the moon from the far right of the image implying an attack from OUT THERE somewhere.

  
  

I suspect the real reason for this element is to give a single, startling image that says "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." The goal of that blasted moon is to signify life as we knew it was over. If they had gotten the physics right, I would have been less put off by the picture.