Why was it weird? It was expensive, dangerous and a dozen more visits wouldn't have pushed science, commerce or geopolitics forward much. Have we even yet fully exploited the samples we brought back?
Now that China is sniffing around the moon the geopolitical reasons look like they are coming back.
It was “weird” because congress demanded the highest possible scientific and engineering standards, and expense was a distant tertiary consideration.
The reasons were geopolitical, yes, but JFK’s legacy was, I think, equally important.
“Have we even yet fully exploited the samples we brought back?”
Analysis of those samples could be the key to solving Gorebal Warning...
It was hideously expensive and Apollo 13 demonstrated how many single points of failure there were in the design, how "close to the edge" we were riding, and that the Law of Averages couldn't be held back forever.
Plus, we had six successful moon shots, and NASA (the real NASA, not the STS NASA) already had crammed into those six missions all the research they could think of that could justified the exorbitant expenditure.
“Why was it weird? It was expensive, dangerous and a dozen more visits wouldn’t have pushed science, commerce or geopolitics forward much. Have we even yet fully exploited the samples we brought back?”
It’s been 50 years and should be a slam dunk to transit back-and-forth with personnel and materials for a moon base. Constructing, living, and experimenting in said environment would have advanced our knowledge for long-term Mars projects.