No. It isn't. The delta-v to go back and forth from the moon makes other interplanetary trips more difficult by an unreasonable factor.
Aside from that interplanetary travel is a game of alignment. The best windows to travel to Mars, for example, only open every 2 years for a period of 1 month. Mars spends half it's time on the other side of the Sun. The Moon has zero utility to this problem.
There's no resources there. The day night cycle is 28 days long. There are moonquakes. Moon dust has the same properties as sandpaper.
It's still a decent testbed for the technologies and techniques that would have to be developed. The proximity is a win in that regard. And if you can deal with the quakes and abrasive dust, you'll have habitats that are arguably over-engineered for Mars.
It's like testing in the desert, but you have to prove it can be launched, landed, and deployed in the same run.
No. It isn't. The delta-v to go back and forth from the moon makes other interplanetary trips more difficult by an unreasonable factor.
Aside from that interplanetary travel is a game of alignment. The best windows to travel to Mars, for example, only open every 2 years for a period of 1 month. Mars spends half it's time on the other side of the Sun. The Moon has zero utility to this problem.
There's no resources there. The day night cycle is 28 days long. There are moonquakes. Moon dust has the same properties as sandpaper.
You do not want to build anything there.
Worse, asbestos. People laugh at the Cave Johnson bit in Portal 2, but it really is like breathing in tiny, sharp fragments of broken glass.
Earth dust at least has erosion and weathering to round off the edges.
It's still a decent testbed for the technologies and techniques that would have to be developed. The proximity is a win in that regard. And if you can deal with the quakes and abrasive dust, you'll have habitats that are arguably over-engineered for Mars.
It's like testing in the desert, but you have to prove it can be launched, landed, and deployed in the same run.