[John Jamieson]

The ISS is of no use in going to the moon. What are you reading?

Dump it in some ocean now and stop spending money on it.

[Brett66]

I think there would be a fair chance of it being used as a staging point for a return to the moon. I can envision the conversation with the president going something like this:

President: I've decided were going to make a major push to go back to the moon, the Chinese seem to have plans that would establish a military capability there, we can't allow that to go unanswered.

NASA administrator: So are we going to set up a base at a Lagrangian point to facilitate the construction of a base there?

President: What the hell is the ISS for? Can't we use that?

NASA admin: Well, ummm no. It's in an orbit that makes it terribly expensive to get to and isn't really equipped to service spacecraft.

President: %$^&*%$ ! You mean to tell me that I'm going to have to explain to the American people that we've wasted our time and tens of billions of dollars on that thing and it won't even help us get to the moon? Hell no! We'll use the ISS, it's gotta be better than launching from the ground! Now get out of my office!