Why always Mars for roving?

[Praxis]

Just a thought I had that I wanted to put out in the general awareness. Probably not unique.

Why is it that we spend all the this money and time on Mars? Is this to say that I think it is a poor choice? Absolutely not. I think that we should be exploring as much as possible and spreading out because we were meant to explore the cosmos. However, it seems like we just abandoned the moon altogether. We had two more missions planned, funded, and trained to go but they were scraped. Now we are sending unmanned things all the way to Mars when we could be sending several unmanned things to the moon. We could have amazing maps of the moon if we had been doing this since the first mars rover. Why not? What is on the other side of the moon? Why not send a rover? I know NASA's budget is intentionally small, but more public outcry for rovers on the moon should happen and force the budget to be there.
While I am fully aware that there are those that want to keep the moon to themselves, we should request/demand that we explore the nearest object to us.

I know these words are probably preaching to the choir. Just wanted to get that out of my mind and written down to maybe get a mind virus going.

Live Long and Prosper.

[humanalien]

The aliens won't allow us to come back to the
moon any more. Or so i heard.

The last time we had a moon mission, the astronauts
flew to the dark side of the moon and seen all the ufo
craft parked on the surface and that didn't set to well
with the aliens. Their cover was blown.

If we are searching for planets to resettle, mars would
be a better choice. Regardless of what the government
tells us, there is an atmosphere on mars, although it is
pretty thin but we could still live on that planet or maybe
underground.

I don't believe the moon has any atmosphere so mars
would be a better choice.

[conk]

It's all just a distraction. "Look over here, see what this hand is doing"! Don't dare try and look at that other hand. it's doing something creepy and secretive.

[Ammit]

I have often wondered this myself, and the only 2 reasons I can think of:

Mars is closest unless you account for the closest orbit in which case it would be Venus

or

It is the only planet we can/do occupy via stargate.......