As a segue to that, as we walked in, Brian had the wonderful question as to how astronauts served dinner in space, and Mike Lake and Mike Wallace both yelled, “On a flying saucer”.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Like so many others, we grew up in the shadow of the greatness of astronauts and wanting to be astronauts. Some of us didn't quite arrive at that level. We wound up being members of Parliament, which we think is a very noble pursuit, and of course Mr. Garneau has proven that for us. He is not here right now, but he has.
I'm interested in the statement by President Obama and your interaction with the space station as it relates to near-Earth asteroids. I want a better description of what we're talking about here and what the real intent is. I take it there are a number of asteroids within reach of our planet that can be attained either by shuttle or by other forms of rockets. Is the intention, as is my understanding, to land somebody on an asteroid for the purposes of exploitation of product or understanding asteroids?
Perhaps any of you could answer this question. I'm very fascinated with the idea.