"Lower gravity and no atmospheric drag might actually work in its favor."

But to get there, you still have to overcome earth's gravity and atmospheric drag anyway. So what have you gained? The major disadvantage to Gateway is that building and maintaining it will be an expensive and complex operation that will only pay off in the support of moon exploration operations. When its not being used to support lunar ops it has no purpose but it still has to be supported from earth. It only makes sense to build it if you already know for certain you have a very good reason to go to the moon and stay there for a long time. If we find valuable resources on the moon, THEN that will be the time to build it, even several of them; not while we're just prospecting.

When I was a kid, the grown-ups used to tell me; "The only reason we want to go to the moon is to gain control of the military high ground, so we can drop bombs on our enemies here on earth". I pointed out; we can ALREADY bomb our enemies from ground-launched missiles, there are plenty of good reasons to go to the moon, but no good military reasons. The kind of lunar base concept we're debating here only makes sense after we have found something on the moon worth moving in permanently for: mineable ice, plutonium ingots in neat little piles, He3, leftover antimatter from the Big Bang, a black hole or a Monolith. Remember the extravagant lunar infrastructure built by the US and USSR depicted in the film '2001'? Until the Monolith was discovered, it was pointless. Granted, AFTER they found the Monolith, Then building all those bases and outposts made a lot of sense. But not before.

Like building a domed city under the ice in Antarctica, or at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, it is a device which serves no purpose. Its not a question of whether or not it is technically feasible, its a question of what good is it for?

Its the same argument I've always advanced why we should concentrate on cheaper, multiple robot probes to explore the solar system rather than a few, highly expensive extremely risky manned missions to nearby destinations. And when we find something really interesting out there, which we will certainly do so eventually, THEN we send a whole fleet full of scientists out there to study it, and establish a permanent base if need be.

Manned experience, developing tech, and zero-g training for crews, can be done in earth orbit where its cheaper and safer. Space travel is an expensive hobby, every penny spent out there could be employed alleviating human suffering here on earth. Now, I am a believer in basic research, I know science will turn up discoveries which have great practical applications later on. I don't think we have to choose between particle accelerators and radio telescopes vs malaria clinics and agricultural programs. But we must never forget that our space groupy fantasies should not be funded on the backs of the taxpayers who eventually pay the bills. We risk a backlash that will mean an end to all our voyaging.