[Vaquero]

He3 may be more valuable in the long run...

Mine the Moon.

[GonzoGOP]

He3 may be more valuable in the long run

BINGO. You mine the moon for stuff you can't get at home. It will almost always be cheaper to get it locally than to ship it from the moon.

Of course the opposite is also true. If you were building a shelter and tools for the He3 miners on the moon it would be a lot cheaper to get the materials there then to bring them out of the gravity well from Earth.

But if you are going for a permanent settlement Mars is a better choice. It may not have as much titanium, but it has iron and more importantly lots of O2, H2O, and CO2. It also has higher gravity and an atmosphere that while thin is enough to block out solar flares.