“Last man on the moon was almost fifty years ago—and they still haven’t been able to replicate it since...” ....”I call it “the dog ate my homework” agency. They are experts at making excuses and finding someone else to blame.” “
Only partially NASA’ fault. Half the blame goes to Presidents and Congress who have not put their political weight and willingness to fund new ventures to the moon, with no political sense of “national urgency”, unlike the initial moon ventures and the space shuttle programs.
The NASA planning documents are one half NASA science and one half what they think they can get Presidential and Congress support for. The rest is yes as good, or not as good, as NASA ought to be able to do.
The lander and rover projects for mars have been rather cost-effective for the amount of science and data acquired from them, as well as lessons learned.
But if we do not first establish a moon outpost, a human outpost on Mars will be like trying to go to sixth grade skipping grades one to five when nothing in an intelligence or scholastic test says you are ready. To me an outpost on the moon is like learning to walk before you can run, in the sense of off-world surface outposts.
NASA long ago evolved into a Congressional spoils jobs program.