[Wonder Warthog]

"I disagree with you completely. When the first European settlers set foot in North America, everything they needed to sustain themselves was readily available: fresh air, wildlife, arable land, etc. The first item in that list is the most important. They were not moving into a place where an artificial environment had to be created in order to perform even basic human functions like breathing."

In comparison the the knowledge and capabilities needed to exploit the available resources, the first European settlers were MUCH WORSE OFF than postulated future settlers on Luna. Hence the fact that so many of them starved to death in the early years. All that is needed for a lunar colony is energy, water, and "know-how". The rest can be extracted from available resources.

[GraceG]

The biggest thing limiting the colonization of space by private interests is the vaugness of space property rights because of dumb idiotic “feel good” measures put in place by the U.N. over the last 50 years.

I say if you can maintain a permanent base on the moon with an ever increasing population you can claim the land around the base within a 100km radius or something like that.

Rather than the feel good crap that “the moon belongs to no one” shit that has been fed to us by the UN.