Oscar says

Tony,

You make a common argument that is used whenever space exploration comes up for debate.

First take a look at this further article:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/061115_techwed_moonplans.html

NASA is looking at reusing raw materials found on the moon to support the moon base, while it won't make it self sufficient, the raw materials are there to make oxygen, water, and building materials.

On the cost thing, yes this will be expensive. That's why they're pursuing it at an international venture. The first trip to the moon alone will likely cost $100 Billion dollars.

But if you're arguing about it from a strictly cost point of view, American's spend an estimate $2.6 Billion on chocolate every two montht - that's $15 Billion annually. Not accounting for inflation, that'll be $300 Billion over the next 30 years. Surely, we should divert all that money from chocolate consumption to fixing the world's ills?

Lastly, while I'm not going to spend the time at the moment researching the solutions to the problems you've pointed out - I'll say I don't think the solution's are attainable solely by throwing more money at them - as you know they're more complicated than that. Plus, its not really a zero-sum game - there's no reason why we can't explore space and tackle all those problems.

I'll close by saying, I'm not a proponent necessarily of this moon base solution, Asa Dotzler brings up a lot of good points why this may not be the best idea from NASA [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2006/12/to_the_moon_1.html]. But I do think its in our long term interest to explore space.