article_snippet.sent: Nasa's ultimate goal at the moment is to land humans on Mars by the 2030s.
article_snippet.sent: Exactly how to get there is up for debate, with the agency favouring a mission to an asteroid in the next decade, followed by a giant leap to the red planet the decade after.
article_snippet.sent: But one expert has claimed that Nasa is actually planning to go back to the moon first, as a waypoint to reaching Nasa final goal.
article_snippet.sent: My San Antonio, science reporter Eric Berger explained how President Obama had, in 2010, outlined Nasa's goals for the forthcoming decades. '
article_snippet.sent: I just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before,' President Obama said in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at the time. 
article_snippet.sent: The goal instead was to visit an asteroid in the 2020s, and then send a crew to Mars in the 2030s - with no mission to another destination in between.
article_snippet.sent: Recently, Nasa revealed how Nasa plan to do the asteroid mission - by picking up a boulder from a larger asteroid, placing a boulder in lunar orbit, and having astronauts go and visit.
article_snippet.sent: But science reporter Eric Berger says that Nasa has been 'quietly' considering going back to the moon before going to Mars. 
article_snippet.sent: science reporter Eric Berger said that Nasa is, 'in internal studies, reconsidering the moon, including the lunar surface, for human activities as a significant stepping stone to Mars.'