Alex posted this one over on Planetary Sciences. Some of you pro- and anti- Moon enthusiasts should read the paper.

From the LANL preprint server at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0401274

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Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0401274
From: Dan Lester <dfl@a...>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:11:53 GMT (115kb)

Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value As a Site for Astronomical Observatories?
Authors: Daniel F. Lester (1), Harold W. Yorke (2), John C. Mather
(3) ((1) Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory,
University of Texas, (2) Division of Earth and Space Science, Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, (3) Lab for Astronomy and Solar Physics,
Goddard Space Flight Center)
Comments: 14 pages, 1 figure; submitted to Space Policy

Current thinking about the Moon as a destination has revitalized
interest in lunar astronomical observatories. Once seen by a large
scientific community as a highly enabling site, the dramatic
improvement in capabilities for free-space observatories prompts
reevaluation of this interest. Whereas the lunar surface offers huge
performance advantages for astronomy over terrestrial sites, free-
space locales such as Earth orbit or Lagrange points offer
performance that is superior to what could be achieved on the Moon.
While astronomy from the Moon may be cost effective once
infrastructure is there, it is in many respects no longer clearly
enabling compared to free-space.