[zokier]

Question is how does this broadening of horizons actually help with anything? When we are heavily constrained on both our ability to collect data and analyze that data, exploding the search space seems counter-productive.

We need some way of prioritizing the search work and for that purpose looking first for life as we know it makes sense as that is where we are most likely to be able to identify life.

If searching for life as we know it does not produce results then of course it makes sense to broaden the search. But that is more relevant debate for our children than for us.