Here we present our summary of the workshop. Asteroids and the comets are an integral and uniquely important part of our solar system. They are also a potential natural resource and target for human exploration and development of space. A Mission and Technology Roadmap advocates sample return from small solar system objects and the NASA Space Science Enterprise Strategic Plan lists eleven goals of which seven can be uniquely addressed by NEA sample return. Primitive asteroids are relics of the formation of the Solar System and contain evidence for processes during planet formation.
Many primitive asteroids are probably too weak to supply meteorite samples.
Some of the asteroids sampled should contain or-ganic compounds that can shed light on the origin of molecules necessary for life on Earth. By understanding the chemical processes that preceded life on Earth, we can better understand possibilities of life on other planets. Robotic missions to NEA will be pathfinders for human missions that might use asteroid resources to facilitate human exploration and the development of space. We have cosmic dust and meteorite samples, the latter probably come from asteroids although the match between specific types of asteroids and meteorites is not firmly established. The Main Belt asteroids and the NEAs show similar spectral class distributions, suggesting that the NEAs fairly represent the main belt, even though some NEAs may be cometary in origin.