NASA's done it before but only in the movies but this time they're going to do it in real life. NASA scientists have announced they are planning to land n astronaut on an asteroid in the near future.

NASA announced its plans of sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 but revealed nothing about how they're going to get there or what asteroid they're going to land on. The big announcement came as NASA scientists announced the findings of their NEOWISE Space Infrared Survey of near-Earth asteroids. Apparently there are 40 percent fewer medium-sized asteroids floating near Earth thus there are 40 percent less asteroids trying to start Armageddon. The bad news is that scientists have only discovered a fraction of these asteroids and there are tens of thousands left out there that could still start Armageddon.

Now that NASA is planning to keep track of these rocks in space the next big step is to try to land on one.

"[Sending a manned mission to an asteroid] is a natural stepping stone of our exploration into the solar system," says Lindley Johnson, executive of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program.

NASA is looking into several different scenarios on how to accomplish this goal one of which is by grappling the asteroid to secure the landing ship. Inspired by terrestrial fishermen and mountaineers, MIT researchers are investigating techniques to shoot projectiles into the rock to land a spacecraft. A capsule could then travel on the tethered cables providing astronauts with the sufficient downward pressure to serves as artificial gravity.

Researchers are also taking into account the different compositions of each asteroid. Not every projectile can be fit to every asteroid type.

"Some asteroids might have a metallic core, and trying to anchor to them would be like banging a nail into an anvil," says Jeffrey Hoffman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT and a former astronaut. "Others may just be a rubble pile, which would be like trying to pitch a tent on a snowfield."

If NASA does succeed in docking with an asteroid the next step would be a manned mission to Mars. The techniques developed in docking with an asteroid will also serve on the moons of Mars which has the same weak gravity.