Bill Nelson: NASA Plans to Bring Home an Asteroid

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson on Friday told of plans for a NASA mission to retrieve an asteroid from space and bring it back for research.

While visiting Orlando, the Florida Democrat, who has been in public office since the early 1970s, told of the futuristic plan that the agency hopes to hatch in eight years. Nelson said a spaceship would grab an asteroid and bring it to orbit around the moon, reports Florida Today. Didnt Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck star in that film?

NASA, the newspaper reports, would then study mining on the asteroid and come up with ways to avert a collision with Earth.

President Barack Obamas budget has $100 million tucked away for the NASA asteroid mission, according to Nelson, who is perhaps most famous for being the second sitting member of Congress to head to space. Nelson was a payload specialist on a space shuttleColumbia mission from Jan. 12-18, 1986.

Anyone else worried about intentionally bringing an asteroid closer to Earth?