NASA on Tuesday unveiled a multipurpose initiative to find, track and potentially relocate asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth. The project doubles as a steppingstone toward NASAs next human space exploration project which entails capturing a small asteroid, moving it into an orbit around the moon and sending a crew of astronauts to visit it by 2021.

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This Grand Challenge is focused on detecting and characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with potential threats, NASAs deputy administrator Lori Garver said in a statement.

The agency is looking for partners of all kinds industrial, educational, even crowdsourcing.

In its solicitation for proposals issued Tuesday, NASA outlined six areas of interest. They include:

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NASA wants to expand upon current (near-Earth asteroid) observation efforts through the use of innovative methods such as crowd sourcing, prizes and challenges, citizen science, and public-private partnerships to increase the resources for tackling the planetary defense problem and to broaden participation, the agency wrote in its solicitation.

Proposals are due July 18.

Image credit: NASA

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NASA Stepping Up Hunt for Scary Asteroids