NASA's (and President Obama's) vision for sending a manned space mission to a distant asteroid by the 2020s doesn't seem to be gaining much steam, but a conceptual mission under development by the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California could bring an asteroid much closer to home in that timeframe. An estimated $2.6 billion could fund a mission that would send a robotic spacecraft out into interplanetary space and drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon where robots and even humans could explore it far more conveniently.

(The following is a post-US-election dispatch from the PopSci mothership in New York.) Dear President Obama, What a relief, many of us thought this morning. We re-elected a president who supports public funding for research (truthfully, public funding for anything). We re-elected a president who acknowledges the reality of climate change (at least you did in your victory speech if not during the campaign). We re-elected a president who so eloquently describes occupations like doctors, scientists and engineers as the definition of American aspiration.

"Horses and Bayonets" was a meme the instant it came out of President Obama's mouth during last night's debate. The phrase was part of a rebuttal against Governor Romney's claim that the US has the smallest number of ships since 1916 (the implication being that the US Navy is currently weak). This piece is by our US correspondents, so they refer to "we" a lot. Oh well - given the ANZUS treaty, it's probably apt!

President Obama's nationwide push for innovation in manufacturing reaches across agencies from the National Science Foundation to the Department of Energy, and now it's reaching all the way into the Pentagon where $60 million is being set aside for investment in 3D printing technologies. The DoD will fund a network of agencies, academic institutions, and companies to build on 3D printing tech with the overarching goal of building aerospace and weapons technology faster.