[Aurora (OP)]

Wouldn't it be easier, cost efficient, and more friendly to the Earth environment if a moon base was built and used as a launch pad for all manned and unmanned space exploration and rocket launches since there is considerably less gravitation force and no atmosphere on the moon? 
If its true why don't we have a Moon base instead of all the excessive spending and fuel consumption on shuttle and rocket launches from Earth? And wouldn't it widen the range of our space reach? []

[Don_1]

The cost of setting up a moon base would be astronomical!

[dentstudent]

Plus you'd actually have to get all that equipment up there in the first place. However, there are "plans" to use the moon as a launch post for exactly the reasons stated. (I believe).

[Aurora (OP)]

Plus you'd actually have to get all that equipment up there in the first place. However, there are "plans" to use the moon as a launch post for exactly the reasons stated. (I believe).

Yes. I think the Bush administration has set a budget for NASA for this purpose and getting a manned mission to Mars eventually after the Moon. But it appears that the Obama Administration is gonna scrap all these plans in favor of budget cuts and bailing out fortune 500 companies.

[lyner]

Low Earth Orbit is pretty good value for many launches, actually.
But if they found a lot of good raw materials on the Moon, things would be really different. They could use Solar Furnaces for all the refining processes (for half of each month).

[Aurora (OP)]

Low Earth Orbit is pretty good value for many launches, actually.
But if they found a lot of good raw materials on the Moon, things would be really different. They could use Solar Furnaces for all the refining processes (for half of each month).

From what I have read there seems to be good amounts of Helium-3 (Which I believe is a very expensive element that maybe used in Nuclear Fusion) and the entire surface of the moon is covered with regolith that can be used as shields against radiation and as a building material.

[syhprum]

The only good use that I can see for a vastly expensive moon base would be for a radio telescope on the far side or better still two as far apart as possible while still being shielded from the Earths radio noise.