Cool discussion, the Eng vs Science viewpoint, etc. Interesting, and now obvious in retrospect that scientists constantly have to read the literature like engineers to keep up with developments. Duh.

Normaly, I'm not interested in the polemics surrounding MSR, but now that the possibility of a mission may be more likely the issue is even more important. Unfortunately from my viewpoint, the media will eagerly respond to ICASMR or whatever it's called. Therefore, it is important to have a dialog that defines the points of contention and presents the actual facts that are known. But not everything is factual or computable in any debate. A major problem is in the subjectivity of risk assesment, which is often the provence of engineers. And once it's subjective, we're into analogies and then down the slipery slope of polemics.

If perchance we should discover microbial life under the Martian surface, it should serve as a stimulus to biotech. We've only had one sample of "life" to study. A 2nd example to compare and contrast everything we know from DNA/RNA, proteins and onward would give us valuable insight that would undoubtedly improve our basic understanding and yield uncalcualtable health benefits. Even if it turns out that the life forms are actually related because of meteoric cross pollination, we'll still benefit. Aside from NEO detection, there is not a more important or immediately beneficial astronomy related quest.

-philw