Regardless of incentives I think this is some of the most important research they should be doing. As a species we need to get a better understanding of the probability of life on other planets and therefore a better understanding of fermi's paradox in case the dark forest theory is correct. So if NASA has an incentive to discover potential pathways for extraterrestrial life... great!
The problem is that the incentive is biased against scepticism. So the process is more likely to find potential pathways but not notice obstacles or counter arguments.