Back in early 2008 I highlighted a poster from NASA asking
"Why the Moon?" It provided a lot of good reasons for our revisiting the moon related to (1) human civilization, (2) scientific knowledge, (3) exploration preparation, (4) global partnerships, (5) economic expansion, and (6) public engagement. I wonder how many of those causes have been dropped, or whether we will get the same results from an asteroid. I am not sure if we want to eventually settle on an asteroid as we did the moon.