I never said the mission would be low cost. I said the opposite in prior posts.

Of course, I agree with your analytical approach to mission design.

I did swag that perhaps as few as 3 Proton launches could put a 3 person (unstated) crew on a many months NEO mission. Hey, make it 4. I did assume a Delta V not much different from escape velocity because a suitable (likely yet to be discovered) NEO with a round trip time of < 1 year could be found. I'd say just recycle some water & bring the rest of the consumables, food, oxygen, CO2 scrubbers & backups. Good points about aerocapture via a yet unte$ted heat shield. Hafta be deployable/inflatable to some degree to fit in payload shrouds.

I do say that for far less cost (especially R&D plus operational mission as well) than a return to the moon we could send folks to NEOs. Do something new & different. Learn stuff for pure science and NEO hazard mitigation (how to best deflect the suckas).

-p