As long as we have governments who’d rather direct resources to socialized “health care,” various “stimuli,” and other massive, debt-exploding misadventures, we’ll never have the ability to pay for it. Maybe our astronauts could hitch a ride with the Chinese when they go. That’s as good as it’s going to get for us.
You're getting close to the only thing that might turn around our moribund manned space program -- a renewed arms race with a powerful competitor (China).
I don't think that it would be too much of an exaggeration to call the Moon Program (Mercury/Gemini/Apollo) a public flight demonstration program of Cold War ballistic missile technology. IOW's, an acceptable way to threaten the Russians (& they us) and impress the non-aligned countries with our power. Yes, the Saturn V was not really a weapon of war, but the Redstone & Atlas rockets were essentially man-rated versions of liquid-fuelled ICBM's. The Russian R7 was also an ICBM pressed into service to carry humans into space.
If China makes it to the Moon, then maybe NASA will get serious about Mars & the asteroid belt beyond.