Well it would sure be a lot more interesting; but the “even better” proposition seems problematic. A rusty bicycle chain sprocket would probably cost the taxpayers $500-billion for a hurry-up manned mission. Competent sentient robots are probably a decade away. For my money we can wait the decade and do it smart.

Interesting speculation considering the company has decided to end the run. What I keep thinking is what if they found an artifact that appears to not be naturally made? That would be even better than finding organic molecules or evidence of living bacteria. But thanks for the Twinkie contribution. I preferred the cupcakes myself.

Jimmy

I am not convinced that finding evidence of life in the past or present on Mars will lead to a sudden push to put humans on Mars. But I believe that follow up robotic missions that are true biological laboratories on wheels will finally get funded. SAM doesn’t definitively detect biology. All the evidence is indirect.

If NASA announces the Curiosity SAM package data is indicating precisely what we should expect from desiccated wallaby droppings on Mars, then I would suppose that is big, but bad, news. The, “Save the Martian wallaby,” and “Let’s put men on Mars” crowds will be screaming for a hurry-up manned mission to Mars. The politics would be nearly irresistible, and a hundred billion or so dollars, sorely needed for robotic AI and hermetic life-support systems development, will be wasted on mainly pointless manned missions. NASA is acting like the carnival sideshow barker. “Hurry, Hurry, step right up, the astonishing Martian wallaby belly dancers are about to start their tantalizing hoochee-cootchee act.”
The Kepler mission has probably been a fair investment, but NASA has yet to release the data on Earth-sized water-world planets orbiting Sol type stars. That’s the most significant data. How many 7-8 billion old Sols with water-world planets are there? I’m guessing there are scores within 15,000 light-years.
The JWST will likely come in way over budget, but it will settle many of the astrophysical questions. The asteroid belt composition and metallic element differentiation are the most important space questions. The answers will decide whether human kind is destined to be a planet bound species. Only AI robots can answer the questions and exploit the resources of the asteroid belt.
What is the business about the recent detection of a rogue planet? I have long thought it likely that the Milky Way Galaxy contains more rogue planets roaming randomly through interstellar space than it does planets orbiting stars in relatively stable solar orbits. Seems likely that planets formed at the origins of most binary and trinary star systems. Many or most of these planets formed in unstable orbits, and were destined for eventual expulsion from their solar orbits. Now, in vast numbers exceeding the stars, they coast endlessly through interstellar space, awaiting some eventual chance gravitational encounter with a distant solar system.