I can imagine how this could become a big bureaucracy with thousands of employees. Careers in astrobiology!!
https://sma.nasa.gov/news/articles/newsitem/2018/12/18/planetary-protection-welcomes-new-deputy-officer
NASA keeps the public thinking about alien life in space, and yet denies that they are expecting to defend from intelligent aliens, just space microbes.
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Getting church people to emotionally defend the perspective of earth as just an insignificant planet in a vast universe teeming with intelligent life was a great victory for atheism.