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 Stra-tegic Plan lists eleven goals of which seven can be uniquely addressed by NEA sample return.
Many primitive asteroids are probably too weak to supply meteorite samples.
By understanding the chemical processes that preceded life on Earth, we can better understand possibilities of life on other planets. Asteroids capture solar wind and solar energetic particles, so studies of their surface materials will contain a record of solar activity for bodies in known orbits. 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. However, meteorites and cosmic dust are cosmic jetsam, and, as with terrestrial geology, we need to visit the outcrops.