Glenn said he would support returning to the moon for research purposes, but urged the panel to seriously consider whether building habitable moon bases as a stepping stone to Mars was cost effective.

Glenn said:

"In effect you're making a Cape Canaveral out on the moon. It would be a smaller one,
I'm sure, but it would be enormously complex," Glenn said. "It just seems to me the
direct-to-Mars [route] is the way to go."

He warned NASA might "use up all our money on the moon and never get to Mars."

One commission member, Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, called Glenn's testimony "refreshing in its candor."

Gary

p.s. This is exactly what I've been saying for years.