"Economic incentives for exploration seem downright dangerous because they have a way of blowing up in our faces that way. As soon as you dangle money in front of people, you motivate them to find an easier way to grab the money than your plan. There's such a thing as too much human ingenuity."

Ok, forget the economic stuff- if there enough water on the Moon it will make going to the Moon almost as easy as going to ISS.
Operating on Moon is easier than ISS- it's a more earthlike gravity instead of zero gravity- things stay where you put them, heat rises, etc. Anything built on Moon is more permanent than ISS- or even on Earth.

Some talk about the problem of lunar dust, but considering that on ISS the crew does go wandering around in open space- compared to ISS, lunar is dust is not a problem if one stays in living areas- it only tramping around the lunar surface that dust becomes a problem. Point is tramping around the lunar surface is an option. A tourist might climb some mountain and scientist may go get some samples. But paving can be made, easily- one could walk or drive on roads and not have dust problem. And one could use robots to make the roads and go to areas in the "lunar widerness". One could have jogging paved paths in vacuum, or one could have indoor jogging paths.

Staying on the Moon for a year or longer could quite possible, and just like with ISS, crew could go to moon without ever doing a "spacewalk". And if you want a zero gee for manufacturing purposes- the moon can allow this also. Earth's gravity is 9.8 meter/sec/sec and on the Moon it's 1.623 meter/sec/sec.
So, Distance = acceleration 1/2 * Time square. So for 20 seconds of zero gee: 400 * 0.8115 = 324.6 meters

Compare to Earth for 20: 400 * 4.9 = 1960 meter. Now on Earth you can't simply fall 1960 meters to get 20 seconds of zero gee- because of air resistance. You can use a Vomit Comet flight and get 25 seconds of zero gee. But on the Moon you can simply fall 324.6 meters and get zero gees. Your velocity would be 1.623 * 20 = 32.46 m/s [116.9 kph or 72.6 mph]. A profession baseball pitcher can throw a baseball faster than this. A profession baseball player could throw a baseball on the Moon and give that baseball 40 seconds of zero gee- 20 seconds going up and 20 seconds going down. Using rather simple devices one could easily get a minute of zero gee.