Klaus is correct. There have always been naysayers who seem to believe every NASA rocket contains a payload of cash jettisoned into space after launch. The fact is that the money is spent on earth in jobs and materials that ultimately support numerous state and local economies.
From its very beginning, the space program has been a tug of war between those that see it as man’s destiny to explore and those that see better uses for taxpayer money spent anywhere else. The main reason for the Apollo program’s success was that there was a national concensus that we needed to face down the Soviet Union for superiority in space. JFK’s commitment to reach the moon by 1970 caught NASA by surprise, but he had the support of the majority of Americans who were willing to pay the price. The Soviet Union no longer exists, and we no longer fear Russian dominance, so that motivation has gone away. But, as Paul points out, we should be concerned with the Chinese, who are clearly pursing dominance in space as a national priority. Whether it’s for peaceful purposes or not is anybody’s guess, but I would prefer to not find out when it’s too late.
As for the cost, NASA is run by the government, which means it has to use subcontractors scattered across the congressional districts of influential politicians - arguably the worst way to fund anything. SpaceX has the advantage of an efficient supply chain and the ability to make changes on the fly by blowing up their mistakes to learn what works best. With their budget constraints, NASA has to be very careful to not make any mistakes because they can’t afford to blow up a single SLS. As for me, count me in on the “Go for TLI” side.
NASA will be concentrating on the moon’s polar regions because they are pretty sure there is frozen water there. Water is essential for a permanent base. The equatorial area of the far side has been well observed from satellites, so it has nothing really different from the front side, which we have already visited.
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Curiosity is completely useless without a critical mindset.
Example? People today seem quite comfortable “knowing the answers” that are being supplied to them. Not only comfortable, but they feel enlightened and superior at having their university educations and shared viewpoints and having the answers. I really miss Richard Feynman right about now.
“As for me, count me in on the “Go for TLI” side.”
So does that mean you prefer the “mundane” “go for TLI” call, or the more prescient “venture where no man has gone before” call? 
And yes, I am a Moon-or-bust person. Count me in! (Particularly since I wasn’t around to witness the first manned lunar missions - having been there or not, it’s still a major feat to pull it off)
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, most of us are gray-haired enough we know who Alice is and why she’s relevant. “To the moon!”
I can see little advantage of a moon base, that can’t be more easily and (much cheaply) achieved with orbiting space stations. The moon base requires passing through its gravitational potential energy well- - twice for each payload, plus with risk of a impact on landing. The idea of mining is ridiculously infeasible. Any substance mined there would be hugely more expensive, after space transport both ways, than mining on Earth. Mining requires heavy machinery. Transporting bulldozers or equivalent machines to the moon is infeasible being way too heavy. Building permanent life supporting facilities has huge problems. Where does the food and air come from? Consider the fragility of such a base, where any breach of the air seal is quickly fatal.
The robustness of Earth based equipment and facilities are a near an impossibility to reproduce on the moon. The scale of what is required is not widely understood. The construction in the hard vacuum of space (I.e., the moons surface) and the enormous energy expenditures of overcoming gravity potential wells, constant life support, pose difficulties not easily appreciated.
Financing this, when we are in massive debt seems like a poor choice. It will probably not happen ( the whole moon base).
Almost any scientific study can be done by orbital and robotic instruments. The Webb telescope is a good example. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of the massive infeasibility of such a manned moon base, even worse on Mars. But in the early stages, media hype keeps interest alive for funding. Until the realities sink in. Then it will be cancelled.
“ Almost any scientific study can be done by orbital and robotic instruments.”
There are hundreds of hours of video and thousands of books and pictures documenting Yellowstone National park. There is no information in the park that the average visitor can’t glean from current documentation.
Yet, the park hosted 4,860,537 recreation visits in 2021. A federal report shows visitors to Yellowstone National Park spent nearly $513 million in neighboring communities in 2016.
Why is it, that these visitors to Yellowstone spend the time, effort and millions of dollars to visit the park when they can get the same information from a free PBS special posted on YouTube?
I know many a pilot that will fire up the 172 to bore holes in the sky, burning a few gallons of 100LL to visit an on field restaurant to grab a hamburger.
Why is it, that these pilots spend he time, effort and dollars to fire up the 172 when they could have had the same burger or better, cheaper, delivered to their door without getting up from the barcalounger?
"Give’ them the money?
They should be earning it, as most of the people you name are - and I say would be on other things.
The notion that government must create jobs is illogical, disproven by history.
Elon has never “conveniently” left out that they were building on past R&D experience from NASA. He has acknowledged that fact many times.
I get what you are driving at, but the implied comparisons are vastly out of proportion.
I get the sentiment. But, there are A LOT of other lines in the Federal budget that I would much rather see gone before this one. Some of them I would gladly trim at risk of personal job security. Whatever our motivations were for starting it, US Human Space Flight brought a lot of wonder to my childhood and is no small part of the reason that I’m an engineer, a pilot, and doing the particular job that I’m doing these days. My personal opinion is that we lost something as a country, maybe even as a species, when we let real exploration, and the learning that comes with it, take a back seat to ceaseless bickering over partisan junk and the endless “social” programs of voter-pandering wealth reallocation.
So, yeah, count me in with Paul. Light those candles and let ‘em fly.
As Kennedy said, and is still relevant today, we go because it is hard. It’s the drive for knowledge, and as good as remote devices like Webb and Curiosity, etc are, nothing is the same as actually physically being there.
Also, back in the 50s when manned spaceflight was beginning, the same infeasibilities you speak of were said about manned spaceflight in general. Who knows what will be feasible in 70 years from now.
Agreed. The comparisons are orders of magnitude out of proportion.
However, the question of “why” for either is the same. I suspect the answer to “why” for either is closely related.
You’d have to specify what knowledge is valuable to us on earth.
Much more development of things and methods on earth, including medical and psychology of voters electing grandstanding pandering profligate politicians.
John D, you may want to research ‘Helium-3’. A promising fusion candidate. Scientist still have to figure out how to build Helium-3 Fusion plants but, can’t advance to the next level if we don’t move forward.
Why would you start from scratch? Using available technology and practices that are available would seem to be a given. Nobody else has ever been able to return a primary stage and land it safely on a floating platform out in the ocean, ready to be inspected, cleaned up, refused and used for many more flights. Now that’s a hell of an accomplishment in itself!
“Taxes are the money we pay for civilization.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes