I think you might be missing a big point about the culture of the US.
We are a country of risk-takers. And it used to be that it was expected that lives would be lost in the pursuit of progress (nowadays, it's not expected, but we still understand that sometimes it happens in the pursuit of progress). We lost 3 astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire, and it only strengthened the desire to go to the moon. We lost the crews of Challenger and Columbia. And throughout it all, it only caused a harder push to do things better and persevere.
To get a glimpse of this, please read Nixon's prepared speech another poster linked to: https://www.space.com/26604-apollo-11-failure-nixon-speech.html
This shows the attitude which is prevalent in the US.
One other way to think about this is to replace the word 'Tomb' with 'Monument' in your question. That is: "Do you think the US would risk turning the moon forever into a monument?" This is probably closer to what most Americans would have thought about the moon if it had ended up being the final resting spot of one or more Astronauts.
Thank you for enlightening me about the culture of the US. By the way, according to the dictionary a tomb is a monument.
Semantics aside, finally someone decided to answer one of my questions without quibbling. Of course, I have a lot more.
If the astronauts where expected to die on the moon, why bother bringing them back?
As for the Challenger accident, which I also saw live and is not a particularly pleasant memory, why did an investigation ensue? Why not just erect a mausoleum to their memory and let it be?
Why did Richard Feynman, member of the Rogers Commission entrusted with the investigation, attack NASA's "safety culture" by concluding that
the estimates of reliability offered by NASA management were wildly unrealistic, differing as much as a thousandfold from the estimates of working engineers, and
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."?
Source: Wikipedia,
Space Shuttle Challenger
Disaster.
Did he say that because NASA lost an expensive spacecraft? What did he mean by "reality must take precedence over public relations"? Did he mean that at NASA there is a precedence of bullshit over engineering? What did he mean by "nature cannot be fooled"? Did he imply that since NASA can't fool nature, they fool people instead, just to appear fanciful in the eyes of the public? Since he mentioned "culture", and Neil Armstrong was the vice-chairman, did he hint us that this is an ongoing practice since the times of the landings on the moon?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.