and that is going to require the use of long range rovers,
and that is going to require the use of autonomous rover control sytems

(Sadly, due to the increase in processor power, I no longer have a lock on this.)

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that sufficient pressures would lead to the creation of thermal hotspots on the walls of south facing cliffs where some type of life may exist. The overburden might provide radiation shielding. Look closely at the strata.

Whether any such organism would be similar or different than anything on Earth is another question.

Whether or not the back contamination problem might end any attempt at manned spaceflight to Mars is another.

A horror movie about a Mars organism getting loose on Earth would be a runaway success. Kind of NASA meets "Ice Nine". I wonder what it's title will be? "Rust"?

My guess is that as the technologies fall into place, there will be sufficient alarm raised by the community of biologists that definitive answers will have to be found for these questions before any manned Mars project wil be allowed to proceed.

The manned Mars spaceflight "enthusiasts" here may now throw their tantrums.
(If Rummel is still biology safety officer, I'm sure he is earning his money.)

Trying to trump China's Moon-based CAPS program (2018 on) with manned flight to Mars is probably not an effective national unmanned space strategy.

Relations with China continue good, and look to be improving, defense issues seem to be being resolved, W. and his team leave in two years, and I am optimistic that the US may join/lead an international CAPS effort then.

If not, it will proceed anyway. It has a certain inevitability about it.