No Stupid Questions

The best way I can say it is it's kind of like exercise. Going to the Moon makes about as much sense as " pick up heavy object, put down heavy object." The Moon itself doesn't really accomplish a lot in the moment, but the practice of engineering all the little things that it takes to get to the Moon, and learning about the universe along the way, is kind of like exercise for society coming together to solve hard problems.

Now you're correct that there's a lot of hard problems right here on earth for us to try and solve, and that's valid. But I also need you to think about just how little funding actually goes to NASA. Or Space X for that matter. It's actually a lot less difficult (and expensive) to get to the Moon than say, teach all our children to read properly.

The skills we build and the things we learn along the way however can be turned around and repurposed for lots of other hard problems down the road that are a lot closer to home. It sure as hell beats the other kind of "exercise" we've historically done to advance our skills which mainly consists of killing each other by the millions.

Does that make sense?

Mars really just ends up being a science prestige project for the country or company funding its missions. I suspect most country based missions would follow the Antarctica model where dual use capabilities are built out "for science" and space infrastructure gets built including an Aldrin Cycle ships.

I suspect someone like Musk or a reasonably powerful organization is going to do back of the napkin math and figures out terra forming goes from sci-fi fantasy to feasible. This will likely come around as asteroid miners can get to the Oort Cloud and get access to large amounts of frozen water, methane, and carbon dioxide. As Mars is terra formed, the planet gains value and interest from countries and organizations to create their own colony on the planet.

Industrializing the Moon. Why & How.

SCIENCE

Mining.

There are so many reason we do these things as engineers. For me, it used to be about having all our marbles in one basket on Earth. But, as I get older, I find the science and engineering are just the better parts of humanity. There's so much nasty stuff happening in the world out there

We launched The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope at the end of August, and I literally cried watching it separate from the rocket. 5 years of my life, and a president who tried to cancel the program, not once, not twice, but three times. All of the work we did at the end of last year under duress of the OMB crap, and NASA cutting 25% of the workforce, trying go defund Goddard.

So, yeah, this stuff isn't just something I do for money, or the challenge. I do it bcz it's my life, it's what makes the bestof humanity, all of the knowledge and hope we have as a species.

Edit: To answer your actual question, the moon is a great jumping point to other parts of the solar system. Launching from the moon has so many benefits over the earth due to our gravity well being so large. As for why we'd do any of this at all. It's a great place to test out living in space, and the technologies we need to do it. If we stay on this rock, we are dooming ourselves eventually. (Whether it's climate change, or a cosmic event, or something else). Right or wrong, people want to go into space, and this is the best way to test out our ability to do that. All the politics aside, we have the technology to go to Mars now. The issue is logistics, and political will stopping us.

children, you have to be pernamently there to raise them

Give Musk and Bezos all the money and free NASA civil servant engineers. That's why all the contractors are being hired by the gov. These two boneheads have ao much money, they bought NASA.

Other people have made solid points, but one thing I think people miss a lot of the time is that "because it's cool" is a good reason in its own right.

I could argue almost any endeavor that isn't actively feeding the poor is a waste of resources. Oh, you're making art? Why aren't you working in a soup kitchen instead. Oh, you're building a monument celebrating a civil rights victory? Why not a homeless shelter? Literally any end that isn't active altruism can be attacked as "why are you wasting time on that."

But one of the best things about living in organized society is that we can pool our collective resources to do awesome stuff that otherwise wouldn't be possible. It's good that there are wonders in the world. I'm glad the pyramids exist. I'm glad the Taj Mahal exists. The Eiffle Tower. The Statue of Liberty. It's amazing what people can do.

And sure, that money, time, and energy could have gone to helping the poor. And sure, none of those were made in a society without significant social problems.

But we can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. And the fact that the poor exist shouldn't stop us from doing cool things. Even if they don't have immediate and apparent "value." I don't have an MBA. I'm not looking to maximize shareholder value. And I'm all on board with doing cool stuff, even if it doesn't have a positive ROI.

Unlimited supply of moonsugar

The only reason a Lunar base/habitat would be needed aside from just a scientific endeavor (no expectation of return on investment, just for the sake of knowledge itself) is that the escape velocity is much lower than on earth so it wouldn't require as much energy to launch rockets and satellites. A shipyard on the moon could be a realistic case scenario.

But, we aren't producing spacecraft at a scale where it would be economical to do so yet, and there's still the logistical issue of getting the fuel to the moon to perform launches without some kind of space elevator - impractical and hazardous.

Will we get to that point someday? Most likely, but right now any attempt at a permanent moon habitat is doomed to fail. Case in point, if governments are struggling to provide the ISS with necessary parts and technicians to keep it operational, doing the same thing but farther away is just not going to work.

I hope I live long enough to see it, but I'm not holding out hope that it will happen in my lifetime.