In one of my recent articles (https://steemit.com/science/@hmushtaq/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-colonizing-the-moon), I talked about advantages and disadvantages of colonizing the Moon. One advantage that I talked about was the existence of water on the poles of the Moon.
However, according to this article, water is not only found on the poles of the Moon, but all over it! But, there is a caveat. According to the researchers which are mentioned in that article, what they are seeing could be hydroxyl (OH) and not actually water (H2O). It is still possible to create water molecules and oxygen from that, but you would have to mine, extract and process it. But we know that something is always better than nothing.
This, and the fact that we could use a Lunar base to explore the solar system further is really a good reason to colonize the Moon in my opinion. A lunar base would be so helpful because of Moon's low gravity, and therefore much lesser escape velocity as compared to Earth. That would make it much easier to launch rockets and space probes from the Moon. Moreover, it would also be much easier to build a space elevator there.
So, what do you think? Are you, like me, convinced that Moon should be the first place we humans should colonize, or would you prefer going straight to Mars?