Comment by runarberg

No you don‘t want to colonize space, nobody actually wants it. You may think you want to colonize space but actually you don’t. Space colonization is science fiction and not an engineering goal. It is a video game you can fantasize about but you don’t actually want to do it. Nobody does.

Surely you must see the difference between expolanet science and dreams of space colonization. The former is actual science which further our knowledge of the universe with tangible results, and the latter simply isn’t. People who don‘t like exoplanet science may have their reasons, but people who don‘t like space colonization are simply being realistic. Because the former is science, the latter is science fiction.

Finally there is nothing about space refueling technology which requires a moon base, and especially not manned moon missions. If you want space refueling infrastructure manned moon missions is not the only way to get there, and probably not even the best way. I also have my doubts here. If space refueling is so important we would be doing it already. Sending fuel from earth in a separate lunch. A case in point James Webb was originally designed with refueling in mind. They dropped it from the final module because it simply wasn’t worth it.