We have to wait until someone else colonizes the moon and finds water or, one can hope, oil. Then, and only then, can we switch on the Space Military Industrial Complex.
With any luck, NASA will be left at the wayside in favor of the private space sector and the US' brightest and most innovative minds- like Elon's SpaceX, Richard Branson, and the exceedingly competent and reliable Boeing. The rest of the world will have little to fear in such a scenario.
I dislike the use of the world colonization in relation to space because it only serves to lower the impact of the concept and horrors it brought and continues to bring.
Yeah, you might see two different articles on the same website. One's talking about Israel colonizing Palestine and the horrors that come with that, and the other one's talking about how America is going to build a moon base, we're going to colonize the moon for all that sweet, sweet rocket fuel. These are not the same thing. The same thing is not happening in that context whatsoever. Now, obviously there is an argument to be made about the sacredness of celestial bodies. I don't think we should be burying people on the moon, for example, or putting people's ashes on the moon, shit like that, or having personal monuments. But that's a different thing. That's not colonization. We're not displacing native people. We're not going to the moon and we're not putting the moonites in a concentration camp. We are doing that right now in Palestine. The same words should not be used to describe both of those situations. And I honestly think the use of colonization in a space context is, a legacy of that Anglo mindset.