Space exploration might have been cool but it always had flawed goals, by design. Kennedy wasn't actually a supporter of space exploration. He was a supporter of a race, a contest with Russia, he picked a race to the moon because it had a clear end goal with a clear winner. Once the win was achieved it could be dropped. There was no good follow up goal. That's what Kennedy wanted.

A serious program of space exploration would see each goal achieved as a step to achieving the next goal. The first goal should have been getting a foot hold in space. We should have focused on building a space station with permanent occupancy and then regularly upgrading and expanding it. Going to the moon would have been a long term goal. Asteroid mining would come before a moon shot. Asteroid mining could produce a viable economy for the space station that could help pay the expenses and could also mine for fuel to further more expansion and exploration. It's much better to find a local source for energy rather than pushing it up to the space station out of earth's gravity well. A trip to the moon early in the game is purely scientific, extremely difficult and expensive. Until we're ready to put  a colony on the moon there's little reason to go there.