Or to send more people to the Moon, push the research on in-space manufacturing and bootstrap some semblance of economy in cislunar space. This seems like the most reasonable way to escape the trap of expensive space missions you mention.

The trap goes like this: launches are expensive, so let's get more bang for the buck by putting more stuff in a single mission; this makes mission both more expensive (insurance) and preparations take much longer; this decreases the frequency of launches, which increases their costs.

Getting some production upwell (fuel, vehicle hulls) would decrease cost of launches, allowing for more frequent and simpler missions, and hopefully break us out of this trap.