I support developing real spacefaring capabilities, which includes the ability to go to the moon. Based on the history of decades of experience in flight and space tests, I believe an incremental approach is the best, both in terms of safety and probability of success. "Swinging for the bleachers" can result in a home run once in a while, but more often, it results in a strikeout. Such was the fate of the overly ambitious X-30 National Aerospace Plane, among others.

From his list of reasons:

1. Satisfy the soul

Sorry, but that's just too vague to be meaningful. I don't look to government for soul satisfaction, especially since I'm skeptical about the existence of a soul in the first place.

2. Bring nations together

Sounds too Kum By Yah to me.

3. Foster commercialization

Commercialism of space will happen when companies can make a profit there. To date, the sole truly profitable space commercial venture has been communications.

4. Gather rocks

Poorly stated. It should read "conduct science". The six Apollo expeditions to the moon managed to quickly investigate at most a few square kilometers of the surface out of a total area of 37.8 million square km.

By way of contrast, Africa has a surface area of 30,244,050 sq km according to this source. No one would say that the continent had been adequately explored if a similarly small percentage of the land area was examined there.

There's still a lot to learn on the moon. Robotic landers and higher resolution orbiters can help with some of that, but I still favor putting scientists there for firsthand examination.

5. Study catastrophe

This is a wee bit of a stretch, but it falls into the category of conducting science.

6. Look outward

The moon, especially lunar farside, could be a very good location for radio astronomy. It might be too dusty to be a good place for optical astronomy. Since it's unlikely that we'll be grinding astronomy mirrors on the moon anytime soon, we're still limited by the size of a mirror that we can launch from the Earth. Given obscura issues, that mirror would probably be better placed at a LaGrange point than on the moon, IMO.

7. Generate power

As discussed in Buck's lunar power thread below, I don't think this is a practical idea. Between the higher losses due to the extra distance and the Earth's rotation, the moon just doesn't seem as practical a site for power generation (for terrestrial consumption) as geosynch. Now, if we can find a way to create solar power satellites from lunar materials, that's a different consideration, as discussed in Gerald O'Neil's L5 proposals in the 1970s. However, creating such an infrastructure in space would be a non-trivial task.

8. Launch industry

If the moon has harvestable ice (and that's by no means certain), then it could prove very useful as a propellant source. I wouldn't put propellant production facilities on the Moon, though, because you're starting at the bottom of a gravity well. I'd prefer the ice be sent to Earth orbit and processed there.

9. Improve technology

In terms of improving technology for use in space, yes, by all means. Extensive lunar explorations would require a lot of fundamental technology that would be useful for other missions such as trips to NEOs and Mars. In terms of technology for use on Earth, that's a harder sell. It's true that a lot of technology was developed to support space exploration, especially in the 1960s. Since then, commerical R&D has resulted in more new technology than the space program. It's hard to justify spending tens of billions of dollars on a program because it has the potential for better technology on Earth. Some of it will fall out from the technology needed for these missions, but I'm skeptical that it would be enough to justify the program.

10. Stepping stone to Mars

In terms of developing the space infrastructure, knowledge, and experience, then yes.