It's about time. We should have had a permanent prescence established on the moon 15 or 20 years ago. We've wasted 30 years farting around in low earth orbit, and not capitalizing on the momentum we built up with the Apollo program. I think the space shuttle was an overpriced boondoggle that was obsolete as soon as it hit the launch pad. God bless the likes of Burt Rutan, and others who are showing the world that the GOVERNMENT is not the answer to getting things done successfully and efficiently.
Recipe for moon base: Strap rockets onto the International Space Station and land it on the moon. It's about time we started thinking beyond low earth orbit.