Honestly I think the sanest model is one of progressively building a surplus atmosphere for reserves and to fill new modules. Ship food up, astronauts convert it to carbon dioxide and urea, and whatever of the latter you can’t convert back to proteins ends up as free nitrogen, which you can use to build air.
I'm also curious about your assumption that any station on the moon needs to be run for profit from extractive activities or tourism. McMurdo uses a lot of supplies because it can. Its design is not as self-sustaining or fault tolerant as a moon base would have to be. A slightly better analogy would be Amundsen Station.