well, I don't think there ever was a question of whether or not we could stay there -- the real question was are we going to have to continuously bring water to it to stay there for long periods of time and I think LCROSS's findings have hit a hard blow to anyone claiming that we can't get water off the Moon anymore

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/13/water.moon.nasa/index.html

there has ALWAYS been diff. means of heating the regolith and extracting water from it -- now we just have proof that it is there in much larger quantities that we thought before

the Moon is a natural place for different groups to setup a basecamp at and if you wanted to have the best telescopes in the universe the Moon would be a grand place to do it since there is very very little atmosphere -- too little to be significant IMO.

as for power as long as we have really nice batteries solar power can be collected for 13 straight days but then it is back to 13 days of night

having water allows us to have greenhouses to grow food as well and at 1/8th gravity you are looking at some mean green growing machines! This is total conjecture but the lack of gravity imo would allow MASSIVE plants -- bushes the size of trees and trees that easily rival the redwoods

you are also completely correct about helium-3 -- that is #1 for fusion re-actions down here on Earth and it is almost non-existent here in comparison to the Moon. Really in my opinion, rich, able corporations are completely off their rocker for NOT going to the Moon to mine it's riches. Although Google is finally starting to turn up the heat. It will be interesting times in the coming years friends!