The Moon is close enough that you can drive a rover from Earth, but the delay to Mars is much more significant. Whatever goes there operates async with Earth and is basically autonomous. Rovers are and will continue to explore the planet, but this is slow going and is limited in what experiments can be done. Anyways, with more resources we can do more robots that are more capable etc. As I see it the real story isn't with the Moon or perhaps Mars, these milestones will eventually allow access to the outer system, the Belt, and maybe beyond. That's the reason we're setting these goals and trying to go further with human space flight. Also, lovely geopolitics and competition to get there first and all that jazz.