re: Mars Direct is nuts
Read Mars Direct properly. The whole point is that the in situ resource utilization available on mars ( which just is not available on the moon) make it a VALID jump point to the asteroids and beyond. The moon has no such resources.
And we already have long duration off-earth experience. It's called Mir. All too easy to dismiss it as a heap of soviet junk, but some lived on it for a year.
Doug