Why is this the only thing we care about?
> The fascination with the Red Planet is driven by tantalising evidence that life may have once existed
This has always bothered me. I'd still be very interested in, and very impressed by, these remote exploratory missions even if we were absolutely 100% certain that life had never existed on other planets. I wonder sometimes whether we're missing out on other significant discoveries because of this over-focusing (in my opinion) on the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life. Was there ever life on other planets in our solar system? That's a very interesting question, but it's not the only very interesting question.