Finding water is crucial to developing a colony on Mars. We would also need to produce propellant that will get us back. Currently, the biggest push is toward Mars, but there's also a lot of interest in the moon, Europa, that orbits Jupiter. It has water and oceans on it that are covered with ice. Mining asteroids and growing crops in outer space where pesticides and land shortages wouldn't present the same types of challenges they do on Earth are other possibilities, Heister said.
Asteroids are remnants of planets that have broken up.
The heaviest elements, such as iron and lead, moved to the core of a planet, making asteroids rich in mineral deposits. Improved technology also will allow scientists to learn more about the past. In the universe today, you see significant structure. There are rocks and planets and stars. NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope, tentatively scheduled to be launched in 2007, will allow scientists to see space in greater detail than ever before.