Years ago when I first started working at Catalyst (a research group at mars inc), I wrote an article for our newsletter that focused on the geophysical aspects of life detection on Mars and the deployment of some of the same technologies embedded within the Mars Phoenix Lander mission. It is good to see some of these ideas in use today, and whatever the results are, they are eagerly awaited. Looking to future missions, the potential application for shotgun sequencing immediately comes to mind, as those involved in metagenomics should be able to provide some clues that were not possible in sample retrieval from past missions (see Jonathan Eisen's post here on the Tree of Life).
And in unrelated, nonscientific space news, it sure sucks to be on board the ISS at the moment.
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