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Asteroids could trump Mars in human exploration if a White House review panel makes the recomendation to delay any attempt to go to Mars over the next 25 years.

Missions to Mars took a back seat to asteroids, or Near Earth Objects in NASA speak, because “we think Mars direct (flight) is not a mission we are prepared to take on technically or financially,” said aerospace veteran Norman Augustine, panel chairman.
During its final planned public meeting held in Washington DC, the Augustine Commission reviewed several options for NASA’s future, including extending the space shuttle to 2015, using the International Space Station until 2020 and sending humans to asteroids using a variant of the large Ares V rocket. The panel seemed to push back from the smaller Ares I rocket.

NASA has been performing low-level Mars mission studies on and off for decades, but renewed interest came in January 2004 when then-President George W. Bush directed the space agency to return to the moon and go on to Mars in the future.