Besides being a base for future missions to solar system planets the moon could be the next site for very low cost manufacturing of technology items for consumers. When the Artemis system finally gets people to work on the moon’s surface the logical step to continue the program’s development would be to make it a catalyst for private sector profit. The profit motive tends to be self-sustaining bring more investment with it. N.A.S.A. should form a think tank to determine what manufacturing opportunities could be made to exist at the international base.
Certainly chemical rockets aren’t the future of human space travel. They are more of a boot strapping pioneering technology that has continued too far, when electromagnetic mass drivers, large ion engine, nuclear powered in-space rockets, particle beam and laser propulsion should evolve through engineering development fort a variety of ways of moving about the solar system quickly.
The unique opportunities for manufacturing on the moon- compared to Earth, such as very low gravity, the absence of an atmosphere and raw materials make it an obvious location for producing computer chips I would guess. Deposition of materials for semi-conductors, super-conducting evolution and so forth could bring a renaissance to the post-industrial era over-reliance on fossil fuels bogging the nation down in superfluous wars that would be somewhat more modern paradigmaticly.
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