In article om,
says...

On 6/09/2012 11:24 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
It's visible, but I'd argue that we've "been there, done that". Note
how coverage of the lunar missions peaked with Apollo 11 then tapered
off until the O2 tank blew on Apollo 13.

The same thing will happen with Mars missions. While people have been
to the Moon, there's not that much difference between the Moon and Mars
either. One beauty about the Moon is it's always visible to the Near
Side, whereas Mars isn't; that's at least comforting.

True.

Exploring an asteroid that's *far* away from earth, as opposed to the
moon which is *in our backyard* would be far more interesting, IMHO.

Same thing with Moon/Mars missions.

Also true.

In a lot of ways, a smallish asteroid is far easier to explore than the
moon since you don't need much of a lander, due to the very low delta-V
required to "land" and "takeoff". If the asteroid is small enough, you
don't need a lander at all. You can just "land" your
Orion/hab/propulsion stack right on the thing.


And have it bounce off too.

If the gravity is low enough that could be an issue. Mechanically
anchoring the craft to the asteroid might be useful.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer