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Valuing life detection missions
Recent discoveries imply that Early Mars was habitable for life-as-we-know-it; that Enceladus might be habitable; and that many stars have Earth-sized exoplanets whose insolation favors surface liquid water. These exciting discoveries make it more likely that spacecraft now under construction – Mars 2020, ExoMars rover, JWST, Europa Clipper – will find habitable, or formerly habitable, environments. Did these environments see life? Given finite resources ($10bn/decade for the US ), how could we best test the hypothesis of a second origin of life? Here, we first state the case for and against flying life detection missions soon. Next, we assume that life detection missions will happen soon, and propose a framework for comparing the value of different life detection missions:
Scientific value = (Reach x grasp x certainty x payoff) / $
After discussing each term in this framework, we conclude that scientific value is maximized if life detection missions are flown as hypothesis tests. With hypothesis testing, even a nondetection is scientifically valuable.
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