Practice run before Mars suggested, Huntsville Times
"Before going to Mars, NASA may need to perform a dry-run by sending astronauts on a shorter voyage to orbit a near-Earth asteroid, a former space agency scientist said Friday during a lecture in Huntsville.
The mission would be similar to the Christmas 1968 Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon that taught NASA men could be sent safely to lunar orbit and return to the Earth, said Dr. Wes Huntress, a former NASA associate administrator for science."