HaHaHaHaHa. Are you serious? There will never be a colony on the moon independent of earth. “Sustainable” ring a bell? Tell me you are serious, please....Hogwash...
Hes not only serious, they intend to start in the next few years. Costs and space available restrict how much we can launch to the moon so that only things that cant be reliably made on the moon will be sent up and only the highest value things like 3He will be sent back.
If we waste money sending chicken legs and bringing back ethanol it will never work. If we only send medicine and high end computers up and send 3He and metal foams back then it makes a profit and is feasible tomorrow.
The purpose of sentient intelligence is to propagate life beyond Earth or any other planet. Evolution is the force that allows matter to assemble itself into complex and self replication structures. Life started in oceans with bacteria and fungi that adapted to different environments leading to civilization. The evolutionary drive will take life beyond earth and it will eventually become self sustaining.