Peter Ward's "Life" Books
"Life as We Do Not Know It", Beaverton Library 576.839 WAR 2009, Viking
The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life
"A New History of Life" with Joe Kirschvink, Beaverton Library 576.82 WAR, 2015, Bloomsbury
The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth
Peter Ward (co-author of "Rare Earth" with Don Brownlee) is an optimist about extraterrestrial life, and a pessimist about life elsewhere resembling current Earth life.
Ward is hyperoptimistic about sending scientists to look for life on Mars and Titan. Resources are limited, and resources allocated for manned missions cannot be spent for robotic missions. Between 1972 (Apollo 17) and 2016, robots have gotten exponentially better; even resource-challenged India can afford to send one to Mars. As I write this, the world has only two human capable space vehicles - the International Space Station, and the Soyuz spacecraft. New vehicles are promised Real Soon Now, but they will at best be shuttlecraft, not multiyear habitats capable of independent operation for