In the latest issue of Moon Miners’ Manifesto and Ad Astra Peter Kokh makes the point in “Perfect Spot Found for Moonbase?” that R&D for living everywhere except the poles would open up a lot more of the Moon to utilization especially the mare/highland “coastline”. Good point! But let’s do both. Let’s colonize the easiest place to colonize too.

He did say that if the government puts a base at the pole that the rest of the Moon might never get developed. This is an error. In 500 years of 2% growth, the average worker will be able to fund their own Elon Musk-style orbital space program 5 times over with one year’s income. See a comical look into the future here.