“Am I alone in finding this return to the moon underwhelming?”
I tend to agree. Apollo 8 was one of the greatest moments in human history. And even though it was perhaps a more optimistic time, a large part of its emotional impact was through being at the end of a turbulent year in America (Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinated) and in the rest of the world (the Prague Spring crushed). Jim Lovell, a great man who we lost last year, said he later recieved a letter which read “Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968”.
As for establishing a colony on Mars, I have always thought that is a pipe dream. Aside from the amount of time it will take to get there, how would it be built? And would people really be able to live there, so isolated from everything they have ever known? I think it would be catastrophic for the mental health of anyone who volunteered.
Good luck to the astronauts. I wish them a safe voyage and return but nothing they can do will ever match the achievement, significance and beauty of Apollos 8 and 11.