Landing on the moon is just as difficult as la to mars. Operating on the moon is much much harder. Getting back is hard because there is no easy ISRU way to do

Landing on the moon is just as difficult as la to mars. Operating on the moon is much much harder. Getting back is hard because there is no easy ISRU way to do it. Nobody will go to the moon to test stuff. Getting water on the moon is a completely different problem then getting water on mars. Testing these things on the moon is totally insane anyway.The moon has some water, we don't know how much, and not exactly were it is. Mining it would be extremely difficult, specially without a nuclear reactor. As for recycling systems, we are already good at them. We can and do test them on earth. We do test them on ISS. There is no need to go to mars, to these systems. On Mars the most important resources for ISRU is easily and everywhere available, on the moon that is not the case. The Science on Mars could answer fundamental questions about live, that is almost impossible on mars. Mars is clearly far more interesting from a scientific perspective. That is not even a point worth debating. I am all for going back to the moon eventually, but mars is far more important. If you want to go to mars, go to mars.