President Obama speaking at Kennedy Space Center in April 2013.

WASHINGTON — Pledging to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, U.S. President Barack Obama defended his decision to pull the plug on NASA’s proposed return to the Moon, saying the new course he is setting for the U.S. space agency promises to take people beyond Earth orbit farther and faster than the old plan.

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Brian Berger is editor in chief of SpaceNews.com and the SpaceNews magazine. He joined SpaceNews.com in 1998, spending his first decade with the publication covering NASA. He was named senior staff writer in 2004, a position he held until being named...