Reflecting the near inevitability of human missions to Mars and other locales in the solar system where life might exist, and given the interest of the public in the question, Are we alone?, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) commissioned the National Research Council, which formed the Committee on the Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, to address the following questions:
*What can be authoritatively said today about limits of life in the cosmos?
*What Earth-based research must be done to explore those limits so that NASA missions would be able to recognize, conserve, and study alien life that is encountered?