Titanium is hardly a rare element and ilmenite is a common mineral found in beach sand. And with most of the developed countries on planet Earth on the verge of economic collapse, only a fool would see some point in spending billions colonizing the moon.
The Luddites always show up on these threads.
However, there is something far worse than spending money we don't have in space: Spending money we don't have to provide people who refuse to work with a lifestyle better than what 99% of the planet enjoys.
If Nixon had rolled back LBJ's great society instead of space development we would be trillions of dollars richer and had a whole new sector of the economy.
I’m one of those idiots that think if the human race doesn’t get off the planet, the next planet wide extinction event will be all she wrote. We’re basically a pimple on the azz of mother nature. We’ve been lucky so far.