In 2010, nearly 50 years after President John F. Kennedy proposed sending a man to the moon, President Obama suggested a 2025 date for NASA to land humans on an asteroid.
If only it were as easy as in the Bruce Willis vehicle Armageddon.
Back in 2010, it seemed highly like an improbable feat. In fact, even setting a timeline for landing a human on an asteroid sounded absurd.
Ten years later, in 2020, NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) briefly touched down on an ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.
That was a first for the agency.
Now, in exciting news, rocket scientists have predicted that human space missions to the Asteroid Belt could take place within 50 years, provided humans reach Mars by 2038.
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