What would the worldwide reaction be to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life? I fear that so many people are just sleep-walking through life that they wouldn't even grasp the significance of such a thing. It would be interesting to see how the media played this story out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALH84001
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656...
Scientists now say that an ocean several miles deep once covered a third of the surface of the planet, enough water to support the origin and evolution of life. The red planet, they said, had once been a deep blue, just like Earth.