re: The heart of the matter
Agreed. We don't want to build a system specific to go to Mars, plant a flag, pickup some rocks and come home, only to have congress cancel any return because we've been there and done that. I think we were lucky to get the 6 Moon landings we got. In my naiveté back then I assumed we would just keep improving the infrastructure and end up with a Moon base, but the public apathy and political priorities ended all that.