There is no food, air, water etc in low earth orbit as well. If we could get to the moon in a couple of days 50 years ago it should be easy to send supply rockets to a lunar base today. I just find it strange that we did something incredible in 1969 and some 50 years later we are in awe of a space station that is some 250 miles away from the surface.
Lot of cost for little gain.
Even the space station is just a shiny toy. Not sure much is coming out of that either.