Let's skip the Lunar base and go for Mars.
A lunar base would become yet another underfunded struggle for existence, like the space station and shuttle.
We've got to relearn how to crawl before we can walk. I'm all for the mission to Mars, but it is several orders of magnitude more complicated than the mission to Luna.
Let's stay home...
can't even live in peace on Earth but we should spend billions more to put someone on Mars---perhaps we could better spend the funds upgrading our military to protect us here and now--or is the plan for the 'elites' to leave Earth when the real 'shit hits the fan"?