There's only one reason to return to the Moon, and that's to claim it as American territory and construct an American flag so large that every jihadi on Earth can see it.
Not only should it be claimed as territory, (although ultimately, it belongs to all the people of earth, not just one nation), but we should begin development of its resources.
I'm no moonbat when it comes to pop. control etc, but I am fully cognizant of the fact that mankind cannot stay in the cradle of humanity forever, to survive, to thrive, its future lies in the stars.
It can be done. Once the space infrastructure is there to build self-sustaining colonies, the only substantial cost involved will be to get people up there--which if they can build space shuttles and rockets to send small crews up there, they can build craft to send ordinary people up there to live and work in the colonies.
Man need not fight over land on earth and finite (although massive, ultimately resources on earth are going to hit a wall--probably not for millenia, but I wouldn't want to be here when we do) resources to allocate amongst themselves, when they can develop new worlds in space and explore the stars, free to associate with persons of their chosing and free to dissasociate with those they don't wish to be near.
Space colonies could be a form of social experimentation ultimately, allowing society to develop according to the self-determined wishes of the colonists which reside in them. Havens of liberty or bastions of dictatorship, they can choose their own destiny.
Oxygen, water, all the building blocks for life, while laborious to extract and put into a usable form, can be had on the moon and asteroids, for a cost far cheaper than to send them from earth (other than for the inital cost to set up bases for preparing the infrastructure--which would be a massive cost in the tens of billions, but once running could be self sufficent).
space is a place, not a program
just a thought..
I was talking to a friend of mine, an 'escaped' South African here in the US on a Green Card, who was bemoaning the liberals and our loss of freedoms here in the US.
He said, in so many words "Where are we going to go? There is no other country on earth to escape to".
We need another place to escape to.
I like the whole flag-in-the-face thing, but claiming the moon as American territory would be a pretty darned bad move.
Whoever controls the moon controls the planet. I doubt the Chinese or the Russians would take that lying down.
And that would be a great idea! Then again, it could be so they could actually put our flag on the moon!... : ) <<< me