“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.
There are some subjects some folks don’t want you to be logical about. But don’t you change.
I’ve long wondered why we haven’t put up two upgraded (Moon mission specific) versions of the Mars rovers to drive around taking surface samples, drilling, etc.
All off the shelf tech just need to get them up there. Drive around a bit with easy communications of huge amounts of data back to JPL/Nasa. Here’s hoping ... ;-)