Some of the most influential leaders of the space community are quietly working to offer the next U.S. president an alternative to President Bush’s “vision for space exploration”–one that would delete a lunar base and move instead toward manned missions to asteroids, starting in about 2025.

Their goals for a new array of missions also include sending astronauts to Lagrangian points, 1 million mi. from Earth, where the Earth’s and Sun’s gravity cancel each other out and spacecraft such as replacements for the Hubble Space Telescope could be parked and serviced much like Hubble.