That's not what I was disputing. It was how to put resources there. Why is it you think you can refuel on the Moon, but not on Mars for other missions? Mars fuel is far easier to access and far less limited. The logistic of matching up Mars' orbit with Jupiter's orbit may be impractical, but you can still supply infrastructure in LEO with material from Mars. A Mercury mission would obviously not go to Mars first as the exposure to solar radiation has to be minimized.

Water is more valuable and rare on the Moon than gold or oil on Earth. It should be used for sustenance of human activities on the Moon not burned as fuel on a large scale. I believe maglev has a good future on the Moon once there is enough industrial activity to justify building it, but use of lunar ice for fuel should be limited to early activities IMO. Even then only if it is no more than an order of magnitude tougher than using Martian resources rather than 2 or 3 orders of magnitude tougher. 1 order of magnitude is virtually garaunteed due to its relative rarity. Mechanical difficulties could make it even harder.

At any rate human exploration of Jupiter is so far down the road it may well be done by human Martians rather than human Earthlings due to their expertise in radiation shielding and space systems which they will probably rely far more on than Earthlings. That whole human exploration issue beyond the habitable zone smells like a strawman though as I don't expect human missions to planets other than Mars for a long long time. The Moon, Mars, and NEO's are all within our reach. Mercury would be a lot harder, and the rest a jump beyond Mercury at least as big as Mercury beyond the near term ones. I think we'll have to stick with robots much beyond the habitable zone for another century or 2. That is unless Martian colonization or space commercialization provides a strong driver for much faster advances in space technology.

Regards,
Mark