Posted by TheGeneral on November 25, 2009 14:48
Tags:
nasa,
space travel,
space,
asteroids,
mars,
mars mission,
asteroid mission
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Miscellaneous
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We’ve seen the moon. And Mars is on the to-do list. But before that, we just might take a detour to an asteroid.
NASA is reportedly looking to send humans to a “Near Earth Object,” known to regular folks as an asteroid, sometime around the year 2020.
The New York Daily News reports that such a mission could be an important stepping stone for an eventual manned mission to Mars as toward the development of plans to defend Earth from collision with asteroids and other space debris.
Scientists pitched the idea, and a proposed mission plan developed by Lockheed Martin, last week at a meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment Group, a body established by NASA to study non-planetary space objects. The plans must be considered by the White House and others before a decision is made.
Read more about it here.