God did indeed create life in a habitable place, the earth.
But on other planets? No reason from the Scriptures to think so, so whether creationists would spend billions of dollars hunting for life on a planet that has given no evidence for life in its past, distant or otherwise, is questionable, to say the least. I won’t speak all creationists.
As to motives and beliefs driving the present search for ET life, it’s been made abundantly clear that it is the desire of Darwinists to demonstrate that life could and did arise sans God on earth.
“But (life) on other planets? No reason from the Scriptures to think so...”
So what? Should we base all scientific inquiry on what’s intimated in Scripture? Where’s the scriptural reference to FM radio? Contact lenses? Chemotherapy?
No reason from the scriptures not to find life on other planets either. Consider how much life is on earth, from volcano vents on the ocean floor to bacteria in the stratosphere -- it seems like God likes life a lot.
So everything that exists is in the Bible? Pulsars are in the Bible? H1N1 swine flu is in the Bible? Quantum mechanics are in the Bible?
And when we read "In the beginning God created the heaven and the [planet] earth" did God just forget to mention the billions of other planets He created (hundreds of whom we have observed)?
Your theology is worse than your science. When you read the Bible, which you have hopefully read, did you make it all the way to Job? You should know the dangers of thinking you understand God.