.... "In 1998, the Lunar Prospector mission found elevated amounts of hydrogen in the polar regions, consistent with the accumulation of excess volatiles (including water).

So what do these discoveries mean for lunar return? We now know that sustained human presence on the Moon is possible, largely because we’ve found a source of near-constant power (permanent sunlight) and a source of sustenance and rocket propellant (volatiles, including water). The robotic Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions showed us that the poles, almost completely unknown in 1990, are inviting oases on the lunar desert." ....
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/

When I began to be interested on space exploration, my question was why don't we already have colonies in space. Having spent some time trying to answer this question, I came to the conclusion that we should mine NEOs. And then Lunar prospector mission came along and it made me realize that the moon wasn't a wasteland, but rather if there was minable water on the Moon that should be the first destination, rather than NEOs. And I realized the water in space is valuable, more valuable then if gold or diamonds were found in space.
Water is valuable, because one needs a lot of propellent or rocket fuel in space to be used in space. But after a while I realized the water is even more important than simply as way of having rocket fuel in space.
A number of different aspects. One is that water in space can be money in space- it's fairly portable and has an universal need and storable. And perhaps against some people's idea of money- water as money has the advantage of there being a lot of it in space.
Another aspect of water is one need electrical power to make it into rocket fuel. If you mine a lot water in space, you going to have to somehow get a lot electrical available in space. And this solves the problem with SPS.
SPS was a nice idea but they simply make no sense economically. But if you have market for rocket fuel in space and one is mining large qualities of water and required to get more power capability in order to deliver more rocket fuel, at some point in the future, if one has a competitive market one will get to a point where electrical power in space is cheap enough. Then it can then be considered possible to selling the power to the earth's surface. Or in other words electrical power in space might be priced $1-10 per kw/h to be used to split water to make rocket fuel, and one has 100 to 200 KW capacity. To sell for $1 or less per kw/h one might need 10 MW capacity. If one gets to the point of say 10 MW at $1 per kw/h [gross sales of 86 million per year], investors at that point might consider spending a couple billion dollar to get 100 MW capacity which sells for less than $1 kw/h in space and sell some of the power to earth at around $1 kw/h [which is around 10 times more than current price- but specialized demand which don't have access to a grid- it could be a reasonable price. And making rocket fuel is sort of like having electrical energy storage system- when can't beam electrical somewhere for some use, you use electrical power to make rocket fuel, and when you need power for something [you have buyer who will paid as much or more], you stop making rocket fuel.

Anyways, what if there is NOT minable water on the Moon?
I would say it's time to look at NEOs.
But also if there is minable water on the Moon and one is mining water on the Moon, it's also time to look at NEOs.
Or the question about whether the Moon has minable water is a comparison- is it cheaper to mine it on the Moon as compared to mining a NEO? And I believe the answer would largely depend on the market size of water in space- with a small market or a beginning market, it may make it cheaper to mine water from the Moon. But if you selling tens to hundreds of tons of water per year, NEOs could be cheaper source of water. And you different markets: Low earth orbit, High earth orbit [or lunar orbit], Lunar surface, Mars orbit, Mars surface, and elsewhere.
So, as I mentioned in other posts, for lunar water to be minable one need to able to sell water for about $500 per lb on the lunar surface. If the lowest one could sell at volume was say $5000 or more per lb, I wouldn't say it's minable- or least, one should able to get water from NEOs at a cheaper price- and probably the moon would then import water from NEOs rather then mine lunar water.
And if you can't get water from NEO for less than $5000 per lb, then Mars could export water for somewhere around that. And Mars were disappear magically, one could get water from Mercury, or the main asteroid belt or the outer worlds [though Earth itself might cheaper than Mars, Mercury, etc, for high earth orbit- oh btw, Earth is the cheapest for LEO].

Getting to my point:)
We don't know if the Moon has minable water. This is something that NASA should determine when it goes to the Moon. So, my point is we don't know yet whether the Moon is an oases or beautiful desolation, though I would say it's likely it's an oases.