This undated artist concept provided by NASA shows the Dawn Mission spacecraft. In an unusual move, Wednesday, March 15, 2006, NASA is reviewing a recent decision by an agency head to scrap the Dawn mission project. (AP Photo/NASA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, file)
I guess NASA is running out of money for duct tape.
I am more in favor of studying asteroids than many other possible missions. Both for possible defense against a strike on Earth, but more for mining them and using them as space stations and factories.