Do you want to make a step forward just to abandon it again when the political climate changes? Then go to the Moon and repeat history. It is so resource poor keeping a base there will always be a big budget item.

If you want to go where a base can be largely self supporting and therefore more likely be financially supported long term go to Mars.

Do you want to learn more details how the Moon formed? Go to the Moon.

Do you want the ultimate in radio telescope facilities? Go to the Moon.

Do you want to learn about possibilities of life elsewhere? Go to Mars.

Wnat to go where we can afford? Go to either. Shuttle technology can be modified to give us heavy lift capability to reach either the Moon or Mars and readily available resources on Mars can allow us to reach Mars and return for about the same cost as a similarly equiped mission to the Moon.

Fo me the key to becoming a truly spacefairing civilization is to establish a permanent beachhead in space. That will drive improvements in space travel like having the American colonies drove improvements first in boats then in airplanes. Reaching any other goal in space then becomes an easy spinoff.

The beachhead angle and the search for life make Mars the clear choice for me. I think we know enough about how the Moon formed to consider that big question at least mostly answered nad the research we can do with radio telescopes on the Moon is not as interesting to me as the exobiological questions Mars has the potential to answer. And while it wouldn't be of nearly as much use as a robotic space based scope or the large ground based scopes proposed for finding small impactors, a modest scope on Mars could give us a lot of comlimentary information on asteroids due to Mars closeness to the asteroid belt and often widely differing position within the solar system. The difference in position means a huge increase in the number of potential asteroids at opposition or nearbye making them easier to spot plus no large bright Moon to hinder observing half the Month.

It's not necessarily either/or either. Set the goal for Mars and a return to the Moon is an easy spinoff. Many lunar return supporters will say the reverse is true as well yet this ignores the been there done that attitude of the public, the long term support issue, and the public interest in Mars. There are many issues to be resolved with sending humans to Mars. While we are working on those we should be able to dovetail a return to the Moon for relatively small additional expenditures partly justified as testing.

Regards,
Mark