But no. Here we are, fighting human vermin who want to drag us down into their private he11, and the moon hasn't felt our footsteps in 30 years...
Can't we do both?
LOL!
Because it presently costs $10,000 per pound to claw our way out of the gravity well.
I participated in a major study on utilizing ice which is believed to be at the lunar South Pole.
We began with an 8-man crew. Why were they there? To mine ice. Why were they mining ice?...to be there (in other words, the water was used for washing, food, and fuel manufacture--the fuel being used to bring them home and jaunt around the moon). A circular situation indeed. So we looked at making hydrogen and oxygen for going to Mars. There is an advantage because the Moon's lesser gravity makes it easier to lift propellants; we assumed a Mars "stack" would be assembled in space and fuelled from the moon.
What kills you is the need to bring everything. You're mining ice. You need the equivalent of caterpillar tractors, trucks, [all of which must operate in a vacuum, deal with the lunar dust and temperature extremes...and none of which has been designed, built, or tested] specialized mining equipment, [ditto] a nuclear reactor, spare parts, habitats, mechanics, tools, a hospital, doctor, food, a major plant to cook the ice out of the regolith, etc. Plus several specialized space vehicles for bringing crew back home, transferring cargo, etc. We are talking about thousands--or millions--of tons of equipment...all at $10K per pound.
We found that--if and only if--the Almighty were kind enough to pre-position the equipment, the project would pay. The cost of hauling the infrastructure was crippling.
The "fuel for Mars" scheme is killed by the economics; you'd have to make something like 20 manned Mars missions before you could possibly break even.
Nobody is planning (seriously) even one manned trip to Mars.
As I told my boss, if we really want to become a space-faring race, we should abandon research on improving rockets (keep the ones we have) and put all our efforts into a space elevator. It is one of the very few technologies that might allow cheap enough access to allow us to spread from Earth. I figure $1 per pound would do it. No way any rocket system will give you the magic buck-per-pound in orbit.
--Boris
We should go back to the moon and build a permanent settlement even though water is only possibly there, not yet proven. There is a decided lack of bound hydrogen, but plenty of oxygen. This could require some bigger plans.
If America doesn't go back to the moon, don't worry, someone else will. China will be there in person by 2010.