Just read an interesting interview with this guy who invented a laser based detection device. It can identify the 3 parts of tylenol through the plastic bottle and tell you what type of plastic the bottle is made out of. NASA is planning on using it for a 2009 based Nuclear mars rover mission to be able to identify anything on the surface of mars very quickly. The device can identify the makeup spectrum of anything, but has to have seen it before to identify what it is. They are currently making a database of everything known on earth, to be able to identify it. They even said you could point it at a leaf from a tree, and it would tell you what kind of tree it came from. But you can read it yourself linked below. Its this sort of stuff that makes me want to get a degree in Astronomy or some other non engineering field that will in someway be linked to the space industry.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1581469.htm