Perfect journey to prep for a Mars trip? No, a stunt as opposed to setting up a moon base and training a new generation of engineers and astronauts, making real gains.
I TOTALLY agree! We should have started on a mission to build a Moon base way back in the 70s. We literally defied the American spirit and human nature by simply going to the Moon, and not building and advancing upon it. Instead, we just went to our newest horizon, and stopped. We would have probably only recently started building it had we done it. Our 51st state could have been on the Moon!