Right, which is why the asteroid mining discussion is interesting — there are minerals in asteroids that have significant value, and if you could get the cost o

Right, which is why the asteroid mining discussion is interesting — there are minerals in asteroids that have significant value, and if you could get the cost of access to space low enough, it might make economic sense to go get them. I'm skeptical that the economics of asteroid mining are going to close in the next fifty years, but there is at least a coherent argument for it. But the moon is just a big rock. As far as we know, there's nothing there with any intrinsic value - the only economic value of the moon is that it's out of earth's gravity well. So if you had a sufficiently robust asteroid mining operation, or something, then basing it or staging it on the moon might make some sense. But the moon would only have secondary value in that scenario, and you have to postulate some space resource with really high primary value in order to justify being on the moon.