They are still a long way from returning to the moon, but NASA is already thinking about sending astronauts to an asteroid. Such a mission could be accomplished using the same spacecraft and launch vehicle being designed to take Americans back to the moon.
“This would be the first time that humans go outside of the Earth-moon system,” says Paul Abell of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
About two years ago, NASA started work on a new crew capsule and rocket to send astronauts to the moon by 2020 (New Scientist, 11 August 2005, p 6). Now,…
