I know there are high hopes for it, but we need to be very careful about depending on it.

How much is there? Is it available in sufficient quantities and concentrations to be exploited? More than likely it will be in the form of brines, associated with various other volatiles, perhaps even toxic ones. Developing this resource my be difficult and expensive, requiring the use of equipment that has yet to be even designed or tested. Every single piece of gear we will need has to be optimized for lunar conditions, AND has to be light enough to be easily transported there, and, most important, be as maintenance-free as possible. That's a pretty tall order. We're talking about an oil rig on another planet.

Water is most likely to be found at the poles where it can easily exist in solid form. It can be melted down, purified, and hydrolyzed to produce combustible fuel, rocket propellant, breathable O2, and potable water. But at the poles, the use of solar panels will be problematic due to low sun angles and the long nights. Will we need nuclear power to support our mining operations? The miners will be doing difficult, dangerous work, and they will have to be highly trained. But they will not be able to be relieved for replacement or R&R except at enormous expense. The only experience we have at anything like this is at Antarctic research stations, and they have been experiencing very troubling personnel problems (No, they are not being highly publicized, for obvious reasons). It will be much worse on the moon. I don't visualize it as the Clavius base environment in 2001. It will be much more like the titanium mine in the film Outland, or the Eros asteroid in the Expanse.

I hate to be the devil's advocate here, but we have to concern ourselves about these things before we go. The life of the pioneer is not a glorious adventure, it a dreary, desperate life and death struggle.