Imagine if NASA hadn’t entered a dark age post 1974 and the funding for manned spaceflight hadn’t been cut.  Imagine if the funding for the International Space Station and the Shuttle Programme had been funneled into setting up a base on the moon.  If the interest and funding had been there it could have been built by 1995. Imagine also the technological advancement that would have been made in order to live on the moon.   Instead the space programme entered a sort of mini dark age lasting 40 years - and counting.   This has been a hypothetical space & human development themed post.