"Russell Wallace" wrote:

I'll answer that question with another one: why is it that we all
think Apollo was a wonderful achievement, while many of us (myself
included) think ISS should just be let deorbit rather than waste any
more money on it? What's the difference?

Will it ever be time to go back to the moon? Yes - when we can build a
self-sufficient colony in space, rather than just look around and go
home again.

There's far more to space station than most people see. If we are ever to
move into space to stay we need to know how to build things in space -
complex things. We need to see what breaks, what works, for how long? You
are not seeing (or underestimating) the things we are learning from building
ISS that are more important in the long run than simply doing experiments.
ISS is itself a huge experiment, a prototype, a lab. There's no other way to
get the invaluable real world experience apart from doing it. And, we are
doing it in LEO - not on the moon.

Jon