In President Obama's 2014 budget proposal, unveiled on Wednesday, the space agency called for a spending total of $17.7 billion, with $105 million of that money dedicated to identifying potentially hazardous asteroids, NASA said in a news conference on Wednesday. 

Of that, $78 million would go toward the asteroid retrieval initiative. 

If successful, this would be the "first-ever mission to identify, capture, and relocate an asteroid," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. 

Though wrought with unexpected challenges, the plan to wrangle a fast-rotating space rock actually seems pretty simple on paper. 

NASA released an animation of the operation, which we've broken into slides. 

See the plan to lasso an asteroid >

Is "lasso" really the right word here?

Technically, no, but I guess it captures the imagination better than others

It does. It also makes Obama seem like a cowboy.

"Cowboy" is a fine,100% American association.  For Obama, that can only help. 

Fair enough.

I love this Reddit "explain like I'm five" about why NASA wants an asteroid:

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cbmap/eli5_why_does_nasa_wants_to_catch_an_asteroid_and/

They dragged Mad Men into the conversation!