The human body is a fragile bag of water, not well suited to radiation exposure, temperature extremes,changes in air pressure, high acceleration forces, or long periods of isolation from a sustaining biosphere. Almost anything that can be done in space is better done by robots. The ONLY reason for people to venture into space is to get to the surface of another habitable planet for which we are evolved. And there is only one such place in reach: MARS!
Yes there are good reasons for going to Mars. Greatest among them is to safeguard the species from any catestrophic impacts on Earth they would extinguish us. We have the technology to colonize Mars now. To make it economical, colonization should be a one-way pioneering trip. Nobody comes back, ever. (I made this suggestion to NASA 17 years ago and was told that NASA does not do suicide missions. Now, many folks at NASA have come around to my point of view. )
Rep. Culberson has not learned the crucial lesson from the demise of the Apollo program... that political motivations for exploring space are not sustainable in the minds of a fickle constituency that wants to be entertained by a list of new "American Firsts in Space". Colonization of Mars requires the serious dedication of the best scientists of Earth to the mission of human survival.
Forget the moon. In terms of the fuel required to reach it on a one-way mission, it is not really much closer than Mars. I has far less to offer as a base for a new sustainable human civilization. (Although I'm sure it would make a nice military base to shoot stuff at Earth). The fact the Rep. Culberson is talking about returning to the moon is the best indication that he is not a serious thinker about why NASA should be involved in human space travel.