That's one reason the Moon is important - it will be the first off-Earth filling station.
We're never going to get the materials and equipment to the moon required to colonize and industrialize it until we can get stuff out of our gravity well in a cost effective manner. I guess I was a bit harsh when I said that a trip back to the Moon was pointless - it isn't. But it is really nothing more than a big publicity stunt that might get a real space program going again - which is a good thing. I guess my sights are set just a tad higher than landing a man on Mars. I'm thinking on the scale of Dyson Spheres, Von Neumann probes, etc.
Right, but we're not going anywhere burning chemicals. Right now there's no (acceptably) safe means of getting nuclear materials into space.