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Exactly right TTK, I didn't think of that. I also agree there are few tactical advantages for this sort of structure (except the obvious advantage of a convenient staging platform to attack the host planet/moon) and many advantages of a sub-terrestrial facility.
(specifically in a Trek context unless vessels have atmo/planetfall capability then any venture in an atmosphere is inherently dangerous, plus unless a vessels torpedoes are stratospheric [only a few are specifically designed this way] the use of torpedoes for orbital bombardment is ineffectual and rock etc makes for an reasonably effective armour rating)
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I hardly think that in Verhoeven's parody of Heinlein's book, that the government would give a damn about despoiling the moon. I really wish that hack had done a straight-up movie of the book, rather than taking it to illogical exrtemes. Sure, the book has many well-documented flaws, but Verhoeven just took all the flaws and exaggerated them, pretty much tossing out the entire story, completely tossing out the fact that the hero in the novel was a South American of Filipino descent, not an South American descendant of escaped Nazis. And Obersturmbanfuhrer Doogie von Howser was especially egregious.
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I wasn't trying to say what the Troopers Government was attempting to achieve, just postulating as to why a civilization could conceivably want to build such a structure. I have actually read the original Starship Troopers book (years ago), and the novel was very different to the movie, the absence of the Troopers power armour (from memory 3 ton mechanized power armour) in the movie was a big issue for me.
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I had thought that the original novel was a meditation on Nietzsche's injunction re: fighting monsters, and was greatly disappointed when I read Heinlein's comments about the book...
