The primary goal of astropaleobiology, to locate and interpret evidence of former life, requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes scientific efforts from a wide range of disciplines. We could not adequately answer whether space programs other than that of NASA are addressing astropaleobiology. While the concept of astrobiology reaches far beyond paleontology, it provides a framework within which the outgrowth of its sister discipline astropaleontology can be understood. Astrobiology is the scientific study of the origin, distribution, and destiny of life in the universe. The search for answers to these questions leads to exploration across space and time and necessarily involves a combination of disciplines.
Life elsewhere is much more probable than previously believed.
Although this equation has no unique solution, it identifies those factors thought to play a role in the development of technological civilizations. Three major themes emerged from our discussion. The nature of life on Earth, particularly as mapped by molecular biologists during the last three decades, requires an expanded view of the sort of life we might seek elsewhere. An important question is whether there is more than one tree of life. In any instance, the point here is that most life on Earth is microbial and apparently able to survive in any niche in which a source of energy and water exists.