On Mars, you're surrounded by easily processed carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, and you have close to a 24-hour day/night cycle. Bring hydrogen with you, and you c

On Mars, you're surrounded by easily processed carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, and you have close to a 24-hour day/night cycle. Bring hydrogen with you, and you can quickly start producing air, water, fuel, and food. On the Moon, you're stuck having to import the full weight of all of the above. Discovering feasibly concentrated pockets of ice in polar craters on the Moon would help, but still not with carbon or nitrogen, and whether any ice could be found in useful concentrations is an open question. A Mars settlement could quickly become largely self-sustaining, without having to wait to be able to terraform first.