NASA finds Titan's lakes may be creating vesicles with primitive cell walls

This feels very cynical, but what incentive does NASA have to do research showing alien life is not very likely in our solar system?

This is a point I keep making: every one of NASA’s Mars missions has very carefully excluded any scientific instrument that could conclusively eliminate the presence of life... and hence future missions to find life.

I.e.: they don’t carry high power microscopes because apparently there’s no room for one on a 900kg rover the size of a car.

Erm, just no. I have an old book lying around about Viking, the first mission to the surface of Mars and written before it reached Mars. The book is full of the expectation that they will find life and are rather curious what kind of life. (And the book describes all the instruments and methology)

But no traces of life were found ever.

If there is life on Mars, it is hidden underground in vulcanic active areas and alike and no mission we can do today, could conclude with certainty that there is no life on Mars. But we have been looking real hard.