NASA funding time again.
The moon has water?
“NASA funding time again.”
Indeed it is. However, robotic missions to the moon will give much more science than man missions to the moon based on costs. Perhaps in the far future when costs of payload to the moon are reasonable man may have a mission, but it is not today.
All the payload that is needed for a maned missions and return far exceeds the costs of robotic missions. If one looks at the Apollo missions to the moon the vast majority of the payload was devoted to putting a man on the moon and return to lunar orbit and return to earth. If man was not on those missions all of that payload could have been devoted to robotic missions that would have returned great science for months and perhaps years.
This is not criticism of those missions. They were an incredible feat of engineering. However, those missions were driven by politics and not science.