[oddjob]

In the 60s/70s it made sense to go to the moon because it hadn't been done before and we weren't sure what we'd find. Besides, we couldn't let the Soviets do it first.

A great next step would be to establish a moon base, but it still needs to have a purpose more than "hey, it's there, let's do it". Perhaps it becomes the launching pad for a Mars mission, but the scale of that effort would seem to be just too massive to move it to the moon. At a minimum, we need to solve the extended exposure to radiation problem on long space travel, and where to get the fuel to launch off of Mars surface which has 38% of earths surface gravity. A lunar module isn't going to get astronauts off of Mars, it's going to take a lot more thrust than that. Darn it, I really want to see a real effort to get to and from Mars surface. The moon is a dud by comparison.