Obama Seeks $17.7 Billion to Lasso Asteroid, Explore Space

NASA unveiled a $17.7 billion spending plan for 2014 today that continues major ongoing space exploration projects, while including funds to kick-start an audacious new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon so astronauts can explore it by 2025.

The proposed NASA budget is part of President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request and would restore the U.S. space agency's funding back near its 2013 levels. The request is about $50 million less than NASA's 2013 budget but would restore deep cuts from sequestration, leaving the agency with a roughly $1 billion increase from the $16.6 billion budget actually received for 2013. Read more...