The problem with the Moon is the 28 Earth day day/night cycle. It takes the Moon from blistering heat (~250F) to bone-chilling cold (-200F) so anything on the surface has both a cooling problem and a heating problem.
There's no atmosphere so the only way to get rid of heat is to irradiate it away into space or pump it away and do the same thing. Likewise, heating is a big problem and an energy waster as you're irradiating away heat.
Going underground just avoids the heating problem, the cooling problem and the radiation problem. It also avoids the issue of meteor impacts on the surface. Those craters came from somewhere.
Excavation is expensive but it depends on what you're working with. Is it loose? is it hard rock? I don't think we have good knowledge of the geology of the Moon because we'd have to go there and start drilling cores to find out. The presence of ancient lava probably means we'd be dealing with some hard stones too like basalt or granite. But that's just a guess.
Lava tubes, if sufficiently large, just solve so many of these problems.
It's just easier to collect power and produce the light you want to grow somethin gunderground.
NB: most of the visible craters on the Moon are billions of years old, and were created during the late heavy bombardment, 4.1 -- 3.8 billion years ago:
There are still constant meteoric impacts on the Moon, most as micrometeroids, though occasionally large enough to be visible from Earth. The one observed here in 2023 likely created a ~12m / 40ft diameter crater:
The larger craters would also likely have survived passage through the Earth's atmosphere, FWIW, so that wouldn't have saved you much either.
A more significant problem for any surface structures would likely be dust launched by human-based rocket landings and launches. Lunar dust does not billow from rocket exhaust, it is launched on a trajectory, probably sub-orbital, and will continue moving at its initial velocity until it impacts terrain or a structure.
This was first clearly realised and demonstrated during the Apollo 12 mission, which landed ~180m / 600ft from the Surveyor 3 unmanned lander. Parts of that spacecraft were returned to Earth, where it was discovered that they'd be sandblasted by lunar dust, largely as a result of the Lunar Module Intrepid's final descent:
So it's probable that most man-made lunar structures would either have highly-resistant exteriors or be underground. And landing zones out of line-of-sight (or parabolic trajectory).
I thought there are some regions in the North Pole that are constantly illuminated. Presumably the temperature is significantly more stable in those regions.
There's no atmosphere so the only way to get rid of heat is to irradiate it away into space or pump it away and do the same thing. Likewise, heating is a big problem and an energy waster as you're irradiating away heat.
Going underground just avoids the heating problem, the cooling problem and the radiation problem. It also avoids the issue of meteor impacts on the surface. Those craters came from somewhere.
Excavation is expensive but it depends on what you're working with. Is it loose? is it hard rock? I don't think we have good knowledge of the geology of the Moon because we'd have to go there and start drilling cores to find out. The presence of ancient lava probably means we'd be dealing with some hard stones too like basalt or granite. But that's just a guess.
Lava tubes, if sufficiently large, just solve so many of these problems.
It's just easier to collect power and produce the light you want to grow somethin gunderground.