"Prizes are useful in bringing credibility to an industry, inspiring entrepreneurs and investors, and attracting new customers to an industry. Both the aviation and space benefited from the Orteig and Ansari X prizes. But, by challenging people to perform what are essentially stunts, they do not always address the fundamental technologies required to truly move a sector forward. And that can have deadly consequences.…
There are a lot of X Prizes. Many, like the lunar prize, are not dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Prize_Foundation The entire debate about a particular prize being nothing more than a stunt is a debate that doesn't fit well on HN. A private group getting to the moon and sending video back, could inspire others, which could get NASA a larger budget, or lead to more VC funding.
I agree there's a lot of things that can be gotten from it like NASA funding, but many people do not really "know" the utility of going to the moon.
For example, people will talk about mining on the moon, but I've only ever seen articles debunking the utility of this, and not a single in-depth analysis in favor of this. I might be looking in the wrong spots.
My theory is that relatively few people can justify the value of these efforts convincingly. This is part of why NASA doesn't have a bigger budget. "Whitey on the moon"[0] has a ring of truth to it.
Developing strong arguments for further development is one of the most effective ways for people to support further development.
Otherwise you end up with things like "We'll go to Mars for space tourism/exploration!". Which is... well you do what you want with your money, but that's a hell of a lot of money for tourism. Public funding will be hard to come by.