What continues to bother me with their search for life - is they keep trying to look for "life" that matches our representation or notion of life.

Life is EVERYWHERE in the universe, but it does not necessarily comprise the human/mammal form. For the bright NASA scientists, they are being foolish in being so narrow minded to think life has to be represented in the form which we reside.

Well, we don't have anything to compare it with so we have to work from the assumption that life somewhere in the universe operates under the same concepts as life on Earth, unless proven otherwise.