Not much probably. I think it would be at best, be research station. It will be a bit like Antartica. The moon isn't going to be mined anytime soon. There's

Not much probably. I think it would be at best, be research station. It will be a bit like Antartica. The moon isn't going to be mined anytime soon. There's nothing there we can't get on Earth, 10x cheaper. If there was a permanent presence there anyway, and in addition, you had something like a mass driver (probably built for other purposes, such as further exploration), then the economics might make sense IF you can find valuable ores, which we don't know where they are. But I think even then its dodgy - you would have to manufacture re-entry grade heat shields on the Moon as well to ship your ores / refined products back. If they could do local manufacturing, especially for the less complex/bulky items. To support that you probably need a population there of at least 20 or so, with all the supporting equipment and life support. And they couldn't stay there indefinitely, would probably want a rotation of 6 months-1 year (length of navy deployments / ISS stays). We're talking several thousand kg that you would have to move between Earth / Moon a regular basis. Annual program costs would quickly run into the hundreds of billions. Yeah thats comparable to the US defense budget but one of those things people view as necessary, the other not so much. And no private investor is going to touch it.