Why scientist continue to study the moon long after the Apollo program ended?

The Apollo missions had nothing to do with studying the moon, they were a cold war exercise to demonstrate who could throw the largest hydrogen bomb the farthest distance the most accurately without actually having to throw one. Only the final mission had a real trained geologist that had an idea what to look for.

The small amount of lunar geology work done on the few Apollo missions that landed raised far more questions than it answered.