IF, and only if, we find valuable resources, Gateway(s) and a full manned permanent lunar presence may make perfect sense. If those resources include fuel and minerals to support spaceship construction and operations, then perhaps using Gateway as a staging area for deep space missions also makes sense.

But we also may learn that establishing and maintaining mining and manufacturing facilities on the moon will be so expensive, complex and dangerous that they still won't be competitive with an LEO-based system. Remember, even if we find materials to build, stock and fuel spacecraft there, most of the components and cargo will still have to be shipped up the gravity well from home.

If the moon provides useful resources in one place, and they are easily extracted and assembled by minimum facilities, those materials will only give us a fraction of the mass we'll need to supply and crew a fleet of manned space ships. Most of the material will still have to be built on and shipped from earth.

Offshore drill rigs generate more than enough wealth to pay for themselves, but the installation cost is enormous and the commodity is conveniently concentrated and easily transported. Everything they need to function must still be shipped in from land. If they need a wrench, or a pair of boots, or a can of beer, it has to come in by chopper.

For us space groupies, the idea of a thriving space program paying its own bills and bootstrapping its way to the stars is romantic and appealing, but it is also a pure sci-fi fantasy born of our emotional need and childhood wish for it to happen. I just can't see how it can work. It may be technically possible, but from a purely business point of view, it just won't wash. Remember, the 16th century Age of Exploration was financed by potentially lucrative markets for highly expensive luxuries and drugs, such as sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, chocolate, spices, furs. And a lot of people had to die or be enslaved to make it happen. There was nothing romantic and appealing about it.