Embracing astrobiology

Abstract

?Astrobiology? is a term popularised in 1998 by a decision of the US space agency NASA to establish the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI). The then Administrator of NASA, Daniel Goldin, declared that ?biology will be the science of the 21st century?. The NAI was established to promote research aimed at gaining a fundamental understanding of the full potential of living systems. Its goal is to understand how life begins and evolves, whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, and what the future holds for life on Earth and beyond. While such broadly interdisciplinary research is not entirely new, the NAI was to give it new vigour and new resources. And it has.