Romney, for all his glaring faults, at least recognized that there is no potential profit that would motivate private companies to start moon industries. There are no resources on the moon, including the oft-discussed Helium-3, that could possibly be extracted and sold at a price on earth that could cover the cost of setting up an industrial base on the moon. With no private industries, the cheese stands alone; NASA will have to build and run the entire base. And no, the base will not “pay for itself,” or be able to produce anything that we cannot already produce on earth at a lower cost. It would be “cool,” but it would basically be a financial loss of hundreds of billions at a bare minimum.
P.S.: The private companies touted by Mr. Gingrich are currently aiming at putting satellites into earth orbit. That’s where the money is; you can make profits putting communications satellites up, but at the moment there are no profits in moon-mining.