More on NASA's Asteroid Mission

From: http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978484620

The planned manned asteroid mission is heavily viewed as a “Plymouth Rock” opportunity to set foot on Mars or another celestial body beyond our moon. NASA believes it will be a chance to gain a wealth of intelligence and data about the possibility of going even deeper into space.

Others view it as a mission for planetary defense as we contend with the possibility of a “killer asteroid” impacting our earth at some point in the future. With so many cosmic bodies floating around in space, the possibility of a close encounter is always factored into any equation of planetary defense.

A manned asteroid mission is tentative at best, and could launch by 2025. This “dress-rehearsal” would be a lead-in to the so called “Plymouth Rock” plans to step foot on Mars by the mid to late 2030’s.

From: http://sunteaching.vox.com/library/post/plymouth-rock-deep-space-mission-asteroid-idea-gains-ground.html?_c=feed-atom

The workshop's primary goals Were "to Increase the collective understanding of NEOs, communiquer NASA's plans for a human mission to a NEO in the 2024-2026 timeframe, and Receive community input on mission objective," Said Douglas Cooke, NASA's associate administrator for Exploration Systems .

Determining What technologies and Other Information Will Be Even Before Attempting year required asteroid-bound mission with astronauts, gold setting planetary defense plans in case of potential impacts is Vital

ALSO: videos of the conference and Q&A discussion on Planetary Defense can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/new_space_enterprise/home/neoworkshop.html