Continued support of NASA’s missions is critical to the safety and prosperity of our nation. It is clear that space exploration will play a vital role in bolstering the STEM fields and helping the United States become a technological leader once again. The current space exploration roadmap allows vital systems to be tested by visiting a near-Earth asteroid. If the asteroid mission were to be eliminated, a crewed mission to Mars would be much more difficult due to a lack of experience with interplanetary space operations. Thus, the asteroid mission must be fully funded to provide scientists and engineers with the data that is required to land humans on Mars.