Support for a manned asteroid mission increases

SPACE.com : The first manned spaceflight to a near-Earth asteroid could be as early as 2025, per President Obama’s April announcement . To discuss the possibilities, NASA held the Exploration of Near Earth Objects Objectives Workshop , 1011 August, in Washington, DC. The workshop’s goals were “to increase the collective understanding of NEOs, communicate NASA’s plans for a human mission to a NEO, and capture external input on proposed mission objectives.” This week, at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Space 2010 , representatives from Lockheed Martin will discuss such a mission using the Orion spacecraft, which it has been building for NASA to replace the space shuttle.