> "Why the Moon?" not in the industry, but since the domestic launch capability has been privatized and is still pretty unproven, i'd think that NASA would wan

> "Why the Moon?" not in the industry, but since the domestic launch capability has been privatized and is still pretty unproven, i'd think that NASA would want to confirm/test/vet the procurement ecosystem and the new launch capability in incremental stages, much as they did for their own systems when things were in-house. So yes, the US has been to the moon before, but it hasn't been to the moon with these particular fully outsourced launch platforms yet.