The plan NASA is going after now is establishing an orbiting lunar station and a permanent lunar base near the south pole where hopefully water can be recovered

The plan NASA is going after now is establishing an orbiting lunar station and a permanent lunar base near the south pole where hopefully water can be recovered. If you watched the video runup to the Artemis 1 launch they made the plan very clear. Just going back for a quick jaunt to get more moon rocks can be done with robots. The other game changer is the US isn't the only "we" working on landing humans on the moon.