Moon base ahoy?

I've been posting a lot on the Moon recently but, well, it's the nearest world to us and it's just out my window at the moment - so I'll round off the week (I'm travelling tomorrow and Monday so the next post will be Tuesday) with one last Moon related post:

Yes, this is a post about Moonbases.

Whenever someone uses the phrase ' Moonbase' I get very sceptical*: The ISS took a dozen nations ten years and hundreds of billions to build, and it's a historical fact that it happened almost more by good luck than political will. So I tend to assume Moonbase ideas are a good way to get a soundbite and drum up some publicity, and not a lot more. 

Above: ESA's pans for a 'Moon Village'. Courtesy of ESA.

But ESA's new head is on record as being fully behind the idea, and NASA is planning to give the Moo it's own moon in the coming decade, not to mention all the upcoming lunar interest I mentioned in this post earlier. I'm not able to put these directly into the blog, but it's well worth following the links: Firstly, the 'boss' of ESA, on plans to build a Moon village:

Link here

Second, an astronaut's views on the same idea:

Link here

So.. maybe... just maybe... 

* Almost as skeptical as I get when I hear the phrase 'Boots on Mars'.