Enabling safe passage to NEOs

On April 15, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama, in a speech at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, proclaimed that "By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. We'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."

A manned mission to a near-earth asteroid is a bold endeavor, and proponents believe that it may represent a more viable deep space target for exploration than a return to the moon. However, the capabilities for sustaining a crew for such a mission are many-fold more complex than caring for astronauts in low earth orbit, which is the bulk of our recent experience with spaceflight.

What issues and hurdles are likely for astronauts to be successfully launched-- and returned!-- from a near-earth asteroid mission? How is crew selection, training and the need for enabling technologies going to evolve to make this all possible? How does a near-earth asteroid mission prepare astronauts for an eventual sojourn to Mars, which President Obama hopes to also see in his lifetime?