You misread the previous comment. The suggestion isn't a manned station around the Moon (which would have more negatives than positives versus existing LEO stations), it's a manned station on the Moon. There are plenty of reasons that having a base on the Moon would be useful. You can extract resources (including fuels, water, and construction materials) which would reduce resupply requirements, there's gravity which makes long-term habitation safer, and we'd start getting experience with manned stations that would directly transfer over to Mars. On a Moon base, if everything totally fails, you can always still get back to Earth and survive, or survive long enough for help to make it your way, so it's a lower risk than attempting to build a base from scratch on Mars. On Mars if everything totally fails, you're dead.
There's also the propellant depot scenario -- mine propellant on the Moon and use it to refuel ships that launch from the Earth. The Moon's gravity well isn't that deep and there are no atmospheric losses, so you can do farther/faster/cheaper launches using a smaller spaceship that reaches LEO mostly empty, then refuels at the Moon.
There's also the propellant depot scenario -- mine propellant on the Moon and use it to refuel ships that launch from the Earth. The Moon's gravity well isn't that deep and there are no atmospheric losses, so you can do farther/faster/cheaper launches using a smaller spaceship that reaches LEO mostly empty, then refuels at the Moon.