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The moon is probably the only celestial body humans can actually occupy with current technology, for every other object in the solar system we need robots.

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Just like Hawaii, Islands require massive support and material inputs from the mainland.

The moon is like Napoleon's exile to Saint Helena island, very remote hard to get to.

Mars is like the antarctic, nearly all early explorers died and it take an international effort to stay down there.

It's not glamorous but I want to see SpaceX do a 6 month antarctic mission to prove they're capable of supporting life on Mars. No assistance from any existing antarctic base, fully self contained.

Rather than a one off mission, why isn't NASA operating a permanent base there along those lines? Locate it reasonably close to mcmurdo so they can get help in an emergency. I realize we have the ISS but there's probably still a lot to be learned about keeping a fully self contained system running in a hostile environment.

Any permanent lunar outpost (with maybe the exception of some of the coastal ones) needs to be fully self sufficient during the winter, that is nothing new.

No one is going to go rescue you tracking or flying thousands of kilometers in total darkness, snow storms and ~-80C temperatures.

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