NASA seems hell bent to go to Mars, but can't afford to on its own.
Its international partners have no stomach for that — they would would rather return to our moon and build a base there for further exploration.
Doesn't going back to the moon make more sense? Build a base on the moon, and use its low gravity and possible water at the poles as propellant for further space exploration?
Why not the moon first?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/7/11868840/moon-return-journey-to-mars-nasa-congress-space-policy
Links:
From NASA itself, in 2008: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/series/moon/why_go_back.html
The all-knowing, ever-trustworthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 09 2016, @12:57PM
Good luck with internet connectivity.
With enough engineering, they might be able to get decent bandwidth.
But latency is going to be horrible. Ping times will be horrible.
Quick googling tells me the one-way time for a radio signal is between 4 and 24 minutes. Double that for a round trip ping.
Using highly interactive low latency apps will be out of the question. For example: Telnet, VNC.
You would want to use really old school internet apps. Usenet (NNTP). Email (SMTP).
Sliding window protocols with really large windows.
Police can legally stop you for having too much tent on your window.