>>10950>What are the goals?My general impression is NASA is doing more, cheaper missions. Which means robotic stuff and fewer projects that grab headlines. A habitat on the moon would be an exception.
>a good ideaProbably. It's an analog of the South Pole, where decades after the first man reached the point in a battle that had more to do with national pride than science, a research outpost was constructed.
The ideas that I would find exciting, like using the sun as a gravitational telescope, or sending a microprobe to another star, are a bit too aspirational.
And before getting someone to Mars, we have to solve the radiation dose problem.
>need a means of defense against asteroids sooner or laterProbably so. I don't know what you'd do as a starting move. Perhaps fire projectiles at asteroids and test the effect.