NASA is hiring a new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from alien matter, and the pay is a six-figure salary: as much as $187,000 a year.
When we are not sure whether aliens exist, why are we still hiring staff for protecting Earth? I do understand we have to take precautions. But when we don't have any proof why spend $187,000 a year?
Source: Nasa [sic] hiring new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from alien matter - Times of India, Aug 3, 2017
This article reports that NASA is currently recruiting a Planetary Protection Officer to safeguard Earth from potential contamination by extraterrestrial matter. The salary for this position is as high as $187,000 a year. The justification for the role, and the high salary, is that we need to take precautions against potential contamination from space, even if we haven't yet definitively detected extraterrestrial life.

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While a NASA spokesman said the planetary protection officer position 'is critical to ensuring the protection of potential future human expeditions to Mars' and 'playing a critical role in human space exploration', some believe the position is 'wasting taxpayers' money'.
This debate reminded me of the time when the United States launched the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) program in 1983. It was a space-based ballistic missile defense system developed