Mars was this water-based planet, and we know there was stable water on the surface for a long time, which is critical for life having a chance to develop.
If I had an unlimited budget, I would really be probing that question of life because we know what the questions are, and we know what the destinations are.
To unambiguously settle the questions of whether there was life on Mars, it will take scientists down on the surface.
There's a huge question of whether you really need water for life.
I'm so biased to this issue of the origins of life and the limits of life.
We're going to understand that there is life on other bodies in the solar system.
I grew up in this business... A lot of my life has been centered around this question about how NASA is helping us to understand our own home planet... and to understand our place in the universe.
What we expect to find, certainly in our own solar system, are probably simple single or multiple-cell forms of life. To get to intelligent life takes stability of conditions over huge, long periods of time.
Water-based life is very much an Earth-centric view, and we can push the envelope on that here in our own solar system. We have the methane seas of Titan.