Mark,

I think you've called this one correctly. Someone wants a shiny new lab courtesy of NASA (as if NASA has money to burn). I know I sound like a broken record but NASA has made a Faustian bargain with this Mars exobiology nonsense. Sure, "the search for life" is going to make it easier to secure Mars exploration funding in the near term. However after all of the biological containment and back contamination features have been added, MSR will be double or triple cost over a low-ball land and grab sample return. Then there will be the political backlash when the returned sample is shown to be a no-account igneous rock. This is a major political blunder in the making that gets worse-and-worse.

I just hope White Mars can be demonstrated before we get serious about designing MSR (Nick, you're our last hope).

Gary