I don't understand any attraction to going to the Moon again much less establishing a base as is apparantly the ambition of a significant percentage of scientists.
In a world where practical considerations are not relevant then of course it would be natural to have some base or some colony on the Moon. What science-fiction could be conjured without at least a passing homage to this presumptive first step to space exploration? That ubiquitous notion of "to the Moon...and beyond" itself is the cause of what I think is a wasted concern. In a discerning analysis of space exploration a fixation on the Moon is like taking a vacation to your doormat.
What could possibly be the use of a Moon base? It is guaranteed to need resources that the Moon most assuredly does not have. Hence it would be even more destructive to the Earth, whose preservation is a latent and unanalyzed motive for inhabiting the Moon. Need something? Guess what? It's on Earth! So now you not only need the thing, you need to use more Earth resources to get it to the Moon. Reality check: that rock up there will not help space exploration.
Study? What could you possibly study on the moon that you couldn't study more easily from here? Let me guess, the moon? I'm pretty sure it's not made of cheese. In fact, it's a goddamned giant rock. If that rock were here on Earth, how many colonies would be on it? Probably less than they want to put on it now. Any dollar spent on the Moon is one less dollar spent on a truly useful - though less exciting - probe or scope.
The sorry thing is too many fantasies are entwined in this idea of going to the moon. We are so lonely and so desperate that reasonable people who became astronomers and scientists with dreams of doing something fantastic grew up to discover that doing something useful and fantastic was implausible in their lifetime, doing something useful was dull, and so trillions will be spent engaging in celestial necrophilia.