Forklifts tip over 6 times as easily on the moon (was Gravity allows

> I don't see higher gravity being particularly important. Your assuming an open unconstrained work area. I would expect industrial operations will be done in a closed physical reaction space.

For every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. That means that foundation piles (for buildings such as your proposed closed physical reaction spaces) might have to be driven six times as deep as they would on Earth. Warehouse forklifts might operate at 1/6th the speed. Mining machinery might operate at 1/6th the speed. Telepresence waldos might operate at 1/6th the speed. Any humans on the moon might do physical work at 1/6th the speed -- as shown in the Apollo videos.

Locking the machinery together, in order to avoid the low-gravity problem, means extra expense. Solving the special engineering problems fo the moon means extra expense.

> Material handling equipment in low or zero gravity doesn't need has much power so my ton of steel would not be a problem.

The equipment moving the material can only accelerate (speed up,slow down, corner) 1/6th as fast. We know that using stickier tires would not help, because we know that forklifts are already tipping over in warehouses:
http://images.google.com/images?q=forklift+accident
http://images.google.com/images?q=forklift+fatality

> Gravity or the lack of it is just an engineering problem. None of us have enough information on how industrial process problems will be solved [...] to use it as an argument for or against any space activity.

No such argument was presented. The claim has been made by Gregg Maryniak on Economist.com that it would be cheaper ("The moon is the best near-term source of the materials that we need to do useful things in space"), because the moon's escape energy is 1/22nd that of a hypothetical non-rotating Earth, to source raw materials for orbital habitats from the moon than from the earth. My response is that it might not be cheaper, when we factor in the negative aspects of doing business on the moon.