NASA recently unveiled a plan to contribute nearly $18 billion to continue major space exploration projects that are currently making progress. This also includes the funding for a daring new mission to actually capture fast-moving asteroids. The device will then transport the asteroid to a suitable location in space so astronauts can then explore and analyze it.

Like Us on Facebook

The planned NASA budget will be part of President Obama's 2014 federal budget request. The proposed budget will also refurbish the space agency's budget nearly back to the levels they have achieved in 2012.

The budget request will be approximately $50 million shy of the prior 2012 budget. However the request would restore several deep appropriation cuts, and still leave the space exploration agency with roughly $1.2 billion more than the previous expense budget from 2013.

The plan is to send modified spacecraft with robotic arms, to essentially lasso a passing asteroid. The robotic spacecraft will then tow the asteroid to the moon so the environment will be more suitable for the astronauts who will be exploring the particular asteroids. 

The ultimate goal is to remotely capture asteroids from deeper parts of the universe and bring them closer to earth where manned missions can then intercept and start to observe and analyze the materials of the asteroid.

"We are developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture, and relocate certain asteroids," NASA Chief Bolden stated in a recent press conference. "This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat." The NASA chief explains that this mission will lead to fresh "scientific discoveries and technological capabilities."

In all, the space agency could be spending upwards of $3 billion for this asteroid capturing mission in which NASA officials say, "Will be helping to protect our home planet."

This particular expedition is said to be an accumulation of NASA's greatest science, technology, and human exploration efforts. The officials state that they want to allocate the best to this mission in order to achieve the ultimate goal - sending humans to explore on top an asteroid by 2015.

NASA will be releasing additional information, about the mission and other budget requests and stipulations, in the near future.

TagsNASA, Asteriods, space exploration, Barack Obama, The Moon, Space, comets