It's interesting for sure, however that's one very lofty prediction... Consider that the Voyager 1 probe was launched in 1977. It didn't actually exit the solar system until 17 months ago. That's about 37 years for a one way ticket just to get out of our immediate neighborhood. Technology has not progressed to the point where we could significantly improve upon Voyager 1 speeds, so if we have to look outside of our Solar system to the next closest star alone, we are talking about thousands if not tens of thousands of years in transit time. Entirely unfeasible. So, outside of a rover or probe, which we already covered, the only means available to us would be via telescope, which are not powerful enough to spot microbial life on a planet orbiting a star several dozen light years away. What does that leave? The discovery occurring within the solar system, or another enormous technological breakthrough that shatters our concepts of traveling through space. Seems like the headline should be 'NASA Chief confident that extraterrestrial microbial life exists elsewhere within our Solar System and will be found soon.' Oh, and just to throw this out there... NASA receives only about 0.5% of the Federal Budget per year, yet consistently returns that investment and then some with the new technologies, discoveries and inventions it churns out. Do you enjoy having a handheld device which can access virtually any piece of information from human history within seconds? Then thank NASA and that pathetic 0.5% per year for the microchip.