Eli5: Why is Earth’s moon often the top candidate for the attempted establishment of a human colony in space?
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The primary reason is that it’s close and easiest to reach compared to other targets like Mars.
In order to travel to other planets like Mars, for example, we need to wait for the Earth and Mars to be close to each other in their relative orbit positions around the sun in order for it to be practical to reach Mars. This alignment only happens once every 26 months and when it comes up it still takes several months for a vessel to make the trip with today’s technology.
The moon, on the other hand, is orbiting Earth and a mission can be launched practically every day and it only takes about 3 days of travel to reach it. So if help or supplies are needed the colony on the moon can be reached quickly (in relative terms).
So, a colony built anywhere but the moon needs to be self sufficient from day 1 because no help or supplies can be sent for at least 2 years. A moon colony does not need to be self sufficient and can be practically resupplied on a periodic basis.
Furthermore, some ambitious scientists hope to use a base on the moon as a launching point for missions to other planets. The moon’s gravity is a lot less than on Earth so you don’t need as much fuel to get off the surface of the moon. So you can send heavier cargo loads using less fuel to other planets from the moon than launching it from Earth.
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