After last shuttle flight, NASA will focus on 'deep space'

Washington (CNN) - NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says that human space flight for America will not end with the retirement of the shuttle program. Instead, the space agency plans to refocus its efforts from lower-orbit vehicles to deeper space probes.

"Today NASA and the nation want to touch an asteroid and eventually send humans to Mars," he told a luncheon crowd at the National Press Club on Friday.

Bolden touted two new NASA programs that will eventually "open up the entire solar system to us."