Assuming the Americans had technological dominance to go there repeatedly and discovered no resources…they would not stop due to cost. Go look at NASA’s annual budget today. They get that much to make fuzzy pictures of stars and develop aerospace tech.

At a minimum, the strategic advantage in having a moon base before anyone could touch it would go lightyears beyond what any budget would justify. America could have build a remote surveillance base, a missile launch site or simply expanded it’s territory. Imagine a M.A.D. scenario, the moon base would be untouchable and provide the last territory to fight back. No one would ever attack the united states in that case.

We never went there…

Edit: banned for this comment

Assuming the Americans had technological dominance to go there repeatedly and discovered no resources…they would not stop due to cost. Go look at NASA’s annual budget today. They get that much to make fuzzy pictures of stars and develop aerospace tech.

At a minimum, the strategic advantage in having a moon base before anyone could touch it would go lightyears beyond what any budget would justify. America could have build a remote surveillance base, a missile launch site or simply expanded it’s territory. Imagine a M.A.D. scenario, the moon base would be untouchable and provide the last territory to fight back. No one would ever attack the united states in that case.

We never went there…