I'd say something about sense not mattering sometimes in this game. Most times, but not all the time.
Also, it is much easily to make a battleship if you don't have to worry about getting it off planet. Making it in the Docks would make production of any such ship fairly simple.
Ares is meant to serve multiple roles. And assembling something in space may fall under fire from enemies. Ares acts as living and research space, defense station, docks and shipyards, and observational platform. Along with having the computational power to serve as a guidance planner for our ships. At the moment, they usually need to be programmed on earth.
Beyond that, it is a Wonder. You may say we don't need one, but there could be advantages we don't know of. Their Wonder let's them do stuff too. I think I remember CW saying you could only have one. And Ares certainly counts. It's also very cool, which in and of itself is a reason to roll it.
This does bring up another point. Improved ICE might help, but only if it can be used. While solving the BEAR's overheating, I don't think the BEARs were ever designed with cooling in the first place. Likewise, since MICE uses Magmatite in it, it will bump a Firestorm variant to NE. I for one do not want them to be firing from orbit, so a Space Design, along with a revision for the BEARs, will likely be best to prevent Orbital Bombardment.
Sol flos regium- Growing a new plant.
Otherwise know as the Regal Sun Flower, this silver-blue plant was created by some of the more organically inclined in DUC using the some regolith and crossbreeding plants. By focusing on combining high oil content with high growth, it's a vine that produces flowers from water, sugar, and sunlight. Each flower eventually sprouts a fruit that is chock full of oils, such that nearly no animal can actually eat it. Well, actually, this oil is quite healthy for humans and animals in it's natural state(in small doses for supplements), but it can be broken down and used like ordinary oil in ICE and gels.
By growing them in greenhouses on the moon, we can get light directly, and keep the heat needed for these plants. The cold kills them otherwise, since they were bred in MAGMA itself, they're not adapted to freezing temperatures, we've checked. Likewise, too much water ends up killing them, and ordinary earth doesn't quite work for some reason to grow them.
Well, the end result is that we gain an oil that can be used to produce ICE and it's derivatives, as well as gels. Its not that good as a fuel though, but since we often use ICE, it won't matter often. It simply means we can't use it for GOFAST.