Once again, the reasons for developing the Moon are CAPS,
and accurately determing the accretion process in our solar system.

Despite NASA's presentation in Europe,
it's not to develop systems for manned flight to Mars,
or of systems for a manned lab on Mars,
even though those will be nice secondary benefits.

(Let me remind everyone here that NASA is specifically barred by federal statute from
spending money on manned Mars missions, and from advocating them.)

Other secondary benefits will naturally be SETI,
(Even though NASA is again specifically barred by federal statute from
spending any money on SETI.)

or the mining of water on the Moon for fuel or 3He for fusion.
(We don't know if there's adequate water, and likely not, nor do we know if mining water will be cost effective.)
(As for 3He, we don't know how future fusion systems may work.)

Now if the reactionaries of the space frontier would simply stop their attack politics,
then perhaps we could simply get on with the job
(and get the jobs).

Call me a "nationalist" if you like,
but I would like to see the US maintain its leadership role (and industiral leadership) in space,
and would not like to see the US surrender that role to China.

eleven more days to the elections,
and then six more months until we get on with it

Direct, Falcon, Dragon, and a different lunar architecture to spread the costs.