How long do you think it would have taken to get a permanent moon presence if we kept up Apollo level funding indefinitely with that as the main goal? And since I only said "plausible", let's go with 80th-90th percentile best case scenario.
Even if technological progress stopped we could have launched enough parts to assemble a colony structure.
This is splitting hairs, but I was envisaging something more like the ISS but on the moon. A far cry from the 50s/60s dream of a grill and white picket fence on the moon.
Even if technological progress stopped we could have launched enough parts to assemble a colony structure.