"This gives us a great opportunity to do in-situ (at-the-planet) science and learn about Mars...to do probably what we should have been doing in the first place," he said.
Waving a cautionary flag
Other scientists at the meeting expressed relief that the earlier plans to collect and shoot back to Earth Martian rock and soil by 2008 have been scrapped.
"Technologically, we cannot do a Mars return sample mission at this time," said Norman Pace, a molecular, cellular and developmental biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Pace also served on a JPL Mars study group that reviewed future plans.
"I was shocked, frankly, at the unreadiness of the proposed program. We cant do it," he told SPACE.com.
Attention must now swing to better identify sites on Mars to explore with life-detection hardware, Pace said. "I think what the impetus for sample return will be is finding a place to go, which we dont have at this time," he said.
Pace waved a cautionary flag regarding the introduction of possible Mars life into Earths biosphere. "I have my own concerns regarding sample returns from Mars. I dont think theres any life on the planets surface, but I dont know about the interior. One wonders if there were any life on Mars surface, that stuff is going to be one tough critter," he said, noting the harsh environmental and radiation extremes on the Red Planet.
Luann Becker, a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii, said she also favors carrying out experiments on select martian samples right at Mars. "My personal opinion is that we do have the technology to make [life detection] determinations on the surface. Thats the optimal approach. Then we dont have to worry about contamination of the Earth...of bringing back organisms that could potentially be a problem, not that I believe that this would be the case," she said.
Getting the ducks in a row
Slowing down Mars return sample missions can be viewed as welcomed news, said John Kerridge, a space scientist at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla. "The end result will be doing a better job. We need to get our scientific ducks in a row. That is, deciding on where to go and what kind of science to accomplish once we go there," he said.
"If we continue to have politicians and administrators who want this instant gratification, something to come back during their watch, so to speak, then were going to blow the opportunity of using this time to do the job right," Kerridge said.
Presented at the two-day workshops were reviews of promising and clever techniques as well as micro-technologies capable of detecting tell-tale signatures of life, in order to find the biological "right stuff" on other worlds.
One such device is being prepared for 2005 transport to Mars, said Jeffrey Bada, director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.
Bada has designed an instrument to sniff out on Mars what he calls his "pet molecule" -- amino acids. Called the Mars Organic Detector, if the small compact device senses amino acids, that result would be suggestive of either Martian life or prebiotic chemistry on the planet, he said.
"Going to Mars and doing these analyses on the planet, where you at least get a background before you bring stuff back to Earth makes a lot more sense," Bada said. "If you find something that is loaded with a million bacterial cells per gram, you want to be very, very serious about what you do with it when you get it back to Earth," he said.
"I prefer simple stuff that will give you an answer," Bada said. "But if you want to know the truth, Id find it boring to go to Mars and find E-coli. What drives me is that I hope we find the unusual rather than what we know on Earth," he said.
Second genesis
Taking center stage was the long-term search strategy for spotting extinct and present-day life on Mars. However, specialists also aired life-searching techniques for Europa, a moon of Jupiter, as well as unmasking signs of biochemistry on mysterious Titan, a moon of Saturn.
If life within the solar system turns out to be on the same tree of life as here Earth, "detection is a piece of cake," said Chris McKay, research scientist at NASAs Ames Research Center near San Francisco, Calif. "But thats also not very interesting," he said.
"That other branch is much more exciting. There is life...it is alive...but it aint us! Its nobody we know. But then how do we detect it? That puts us on uncertain ground," McKay said. "To me, that argues for a sample in the lab, right here on Earth," he said.
"Astrobiology would be best served if we discovered life and find that it really is different from life on Earth. It would represent a true, second genesis of life," he said.
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