ever since even the fourth century BC
and beyond I imagine there's been an
interest in the possibility of life
elsewhere and the Greek philosopher
metrodorus of Chios was very much
interested and thought that it would be
very foolish to think that with all the
many possible worlds in the universe
that there would be only life on this
planet Lucretia Slater on 1st century BC
yet was of a similar opinion it was only
with the rise of Ptolemaic understanding
of the universe that people started to
think of the universe it's earth
centered and that was a later on
phenomena and not necessarily prevalent
in early Greece as a result though of
Ptolemies ideas in the Dark Ages in
Western civilization it was considered
that earth was the center of the
universe and it was the only place that
life existed the later on that was
overturned by the ideas of Copernicus
and Kepler and those that followed since
the earliest of times man has been
interested in the heavens having been
fascinated by the countless points of
light that sparkled in the darkness of
the evening skies one of these had a
reddish hue to it
and was known by several names depending
on where one was many of the ancients
named the planet we call Mars after
their God of War due to the planets
reddish hue which reminded them of blood
in fact the nickname the red planet
comes from this as does the notion that
possible Martians would be warrior like
with Galileo's invention of the
telescope in 1609 the first clear look
at this the fourth planet became
possible early astronomers believed that
the Martian surface was similar to
Earth's the first telescopic drawings of
Mars showing distinct changes in surface
appearance were made by Christian
Huygens in 1659 he observed that the
Martian polar icecap seemed to wax and
wane and dark patches seemed to appear
on the surface of Mars these
observations led to the idea that Mars
was indeed a habitable world similar to
our own it had a time of day was very
similar to the earth and so people
imagined it to be like this and so they
and this the prospect reinforced by
these observations however in 1877 an
Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli
observed lines on the Martian surface
and called them Canali the English
translation of Canali is channels or
grooves these channels were mistakenly
called canals in English and the name
stuck of course canals would infer that
some type of intelligent life form on
Mars was capable of building these
structures
in 1879 caparelli reported seeing double
lines of Canali he came to believe that
these finale were rivers on the surface
of Mars a natural phenomenon others
continue to think that the Canali were
artificial that is to say constructed by
some life-form later on shepper le the
Italian astronomer made observations of
Mars and in trying to make sense out of
the visual image he saw of Mars on one
of the closer opposition's the word
Canali came into use because he thought
he saw straight lines on the surface
this was seized upon by Percival Lowell
and he wrote a book in the 1890s that
described the possibility of a Mars that
would have intelligent life water but a
dry planet in general so I need to get
the water down to the presumably more
agriculturally inclined central parts of
the planet first of all while will
maintain this interest in a living and
civilized Mars until his death in 1916
and of course his ideas were seized upon
and made popular for a lot of us by
Edgar Rice Burroughs who's Barsoom
series that was fascinating and a lot of
fun in a potboiler sort of way
and I got people's imaginations turned
up about the ideas of civilizations on
Mars dying civilizations and recurrent
civilizations and I think that a lot of
that stayed in the public mind certainly
was something that I found of interest
later on we found that Mars was a much
different place than chaparral II and
Percival Lowell had imagined the
American astronomer Percival Lowell was
another who saw the Canali and believed
them to be artificially created he made
his observations with a variety of
telescopes in different parts of the
world starting in 1896 Lowell wrote the
first of his three books about Mars
there's been a long-standing interest
with Mars and with life on Mars and I
think it traces back to the early
telescope observations when people
finally started pointing telescopes at
the planets they notice them are
unlike all the other planets had
distinct seasonal cycles very similar to
Earth's it had white polar caps which
shrank and grew with the seasons it had
dark spots on the surface which seemed
to come and go with the seasons like
vegetation and it was this similarity
between Earth and Mars this superficial
similarity but I think was the spark
that first started this interest in life
on Mars and the notion that there was
civilizations on Mars as well and then I
think all the subsequent observations in
some sense culminating with Percival
Lowell's work looking for canals on Mars
and the perception that there were
canals and that was an evidence of human
civilization like civilizations all of
that has tended to reinforce the notion
that Mars was the planet that was the
most like earth better information about
Mars and its surface came with the
development of new technology the first
breakthrough came in 1964 when NASA's
Mariner 4 spacecraft flew by Mars at a
distance of nine thousand eight hundred
forty-four kilometers Mariner four
returned 22 images of Mars including
some which showed impact craters on the
surface and caused much comment among
planetary scientists of the time the
images Mariner 4 returned gave us an
image of Mars that was totally different
than expected it wasn't until late 1969
with Mariner six and seven that we got a
clearer look at the martian surface
these two flybys gave scientists
hundreds of images and showed many
details of the surface that were once
again totally unexpected
the imaging showed a planet start and
lunar like in appearance with craters
and vast featureless areas also seen was
chaotic terrain unlike anything seen
here on earth or on the moon craters
ranging in size from 500 meters to 500
kilometers in diameter were seen after
we started to fly by Mars with
spacecraft we found that Mars was a much
drier place than
had been conceived before and also one
where a very low atmospheric pressure
less than 1% of that of the year total
surface area of Mars is approximately
that of the earth dry land surface so
it's a fairly large planet in terms of
possibilities and as a separate world
anything you say about any particular
place on Mars may not pertain everywhere
on Mars 1/4 Mariner mission Mariner 9
was successfully launched on May 30th
1971 the spacecraft was inserted into
Mars orbit in November of 1971 and
functioned for 349 days returning almost
7,000 images what Mariner 9 first
reached Mars an intense dust storm had
obscured most of the Martian surface so
scientists used the opportunity to study
the Martian moons Deimos and Phobos
Mariner 9 eventually mapped over 85% of
the Martian surface with images having a
resolution of approximately one
kilometer imaging returned from this
mission gave scientists the first really
comprehensive look at the red planet
other experiments on board Mariner 9
told scientists that Mars was a very
cold planet and that the Martian
atmosphere was about 1% as dense as the
Earth's atmosphere at sea level
dramatic change came in 1971 and it just
revealed a fascinating place with huge
volcanoes vast canyons enormous dry
riverbeds sand dunes just an incredibly
very variable planet and particularly
fascinated with all these indications
that water had flowed across the surface
and some of that some of the features
really quite startling because they were
not dry riverbeds suggestive of large
floods and these floods were an enormous
magnitude they would have had discharges
a hundred times a dischargeable present
Mississippi was just lasted a short time
but as a consequence people began to
rethink how many other features on Mars
were seen for the first time in addition
to Olympus Mars one of the largest known
volcanoes in the solar system there were
vast valleys on the surface of Mars as
well as canyons one of which is much
longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon
in the United States this Martian of
this Valles Marineris extends over two
thousand kilometres other formations and
deposits seem to indicate that the
long-ago and Martian history there were
large amounts of water present on the
surface of Mars Mars was still an enigma
to scientists and researchers after
Mariner 9 they wanted and needed to know
much more about Mars specifically
whether or not there was or had been
life there so another unmanned mission
to Mars was in the works viking vikings
1 and 2 were launched from Cape Kennedy
in the summer of 1975 and reached Mars
in the summer of 1976 the primary
objectives of the spacecraft were to
safely land on the surface of Mars and
to attempt to determine if there was
some type of life on Mars either now or
in the past the Mariner missions did not
tell scientists if there was life on
Mars
and in the end Viking did not
conclusively answer this question either
the Viking spacecraft each consisted of
two separate spacecraft there was an
instrumented orbiter section which
remained in orbit above Mars taking
readings and measurements
taking pictures and acting as a relay
satellite for the Viking landers these
Landers were miniature laboratories the
goal of the Viking project was the
exploration of Mars and we had had
missions that went to Mars before but
the goal of the Viking was to land
spacecraft on the surface and actually
explore in situ what Mars was like it
was like being on Mars we actually had
experiments that one would do if one of
us were lucky enough to be landed on on
the planet and dug up handfuls of Mars
and had a little laboratory there it was
fundamentally with what Viking was all
about we used two spacecraft to do that
we had a spacecraft that was a lander
this base craft was in orbit it was kind
of like a mother and a daughter the
mother was the one that received the
information and did a little
investigation on its own and the ladder
was primarily used to to do the kinds of
things that if we were having a field
trip on Mars we would have sent an
exploration party up to Mars to do that
kind of experiment they involved
meteorology they involve biology they
involve chemistry they involved geology
of course the biology was a predominant
predominant question we had because that
was a kind of a bell ringer but
nevertheless did the whole point of the
Viking was to explore in breadth what
Mars was was like and how summer how
different it is from the earth the
Viking spacecraft consisted of two parts
an orbiter that was placed into orbit
around Mars it carried the daughter ship
that was then allowed to descend to the
surface of the planet
the orbiter consisted of a large
spacecraft with very large solar panels
so that it could absorb the sun's energy
to burn to electrical power and be run
the orbiter was placed into elliptical
orbit around Mars the periapsis of the
planet this was about 1500 kilometers
the opposite entered orbit was trimming
about 30,000 kilometers
imagine this orbital passing over a
landing site and it's a distance of
about 15 kilometers trying to take
pictures of a landing site that we know
later going to be going to be used for
the daughter ship the lander which was
folded up like a Chris
of a butterfly would be later landed by
descending to the surface the descent of
the surface was tricky because the Mars
atmosphere was just thin enough to bring
up the not sick enough to to slow you
down and so there was this unique
problem of a landing system that wasn't
just a parachute in fact we had three
braking systems online or once down into
the Mars atmosphere a person is this was
no ordinary parachute this was a
parachute the head there slowed the
spacecraft down at Mach and about box
for parachute got us down to within
about a hundred kilometers and then a
retro rocket system was used retro
rockets were firing the Rockets down
against the mild surface to slowly slow
the spacecraft found in combination with
the radar data tell us how far we
working surface and allow the spacecraft
to descend to the surface the very last
moments that be like jumping off the
small table to eat settled on up to the
Mars atmosphere and protect those
valuable scientific instruments from
from our crash
the first Lander was originally
scheduled to set down on the surface on
July 4th 1976 in honor of America's
Bicentennial however when the spacecraft
reached Mars and began imaging the
proposed landing sites the scientists
saw a younger and more dynamic planet
than they had expected after two weeks
of studying the images returned from
Mars a new landing site was selected and
the Viking one lander set down on the
cry see plenty show on July 20 1976 the
Viking two Landers safely soft landed on
the Utopia Planitia on September 3rd
1976 the selection of the landing sites
was one of the more controversial issues
of the Viking missions the biologists
wanted an area that would be the most
hospitable to life and the landing team
wanted the site was conducive to a safe
landing as soon as the lander was down
onto the surface there were two things
done one the well-being of the
spacecraft think about you're trying to
land some kind of an instrument anywhere
first thing to do is to make sure that
the system is working elevates the the
antenna that talked back to the earth
takes measurement temperature
measurements to make sure that the
spacecraft is all right a kind of
housekeeping maneuver there most of the
most important piece of scientific data
to come back would be the first picture
and the very first picture pointed down
to the foot pad to make sure that the
instruments were stable with the
spacecraft was stable and also to see
what the Martian surface was like I will
never forget that first evening when we
first saw the first pictures coming back
did 5-bit line-by-line sweeping across
the Barros surface and seeing for the
first time that it was a surface that
was per measure from the young a sense
that looked a little bit like like some
pictures we've seen of the earth and
that it wasn't like the moon at all
there were rocks in the surface that
were features to the surface you didn't
get a horizon until the second picture
first
she was just to say it's sort of like
looking down at your own foot if you
stepped onto a brand new planet and said
what is it like on this planet in time
the other experiments were successfully
activated and the results were anxiously
awaited here on earth scientists were
elated at this the first opportunity to
look for life on another planet in situ
but data from the experiments on the
surface of Mars was inconclusive
additionally the meteorology packages
showed Mars to have an extremely cold
and hostile environment to life as we
know it here on earth the three biology
experiments were designed to detect
activity of microorganisms as we
understand them if there were any
present in the Martian soil that Viking
gathered for testing these experiment
packages measured a gas exchange with
the surface sample for both the
incorporation and release of radioactive
carbon-14 in one experiment immediately
after heating and humidifying a soil
sample with a complex nutrient oxygen
was detected about 15 times as much
oxygen as is known to be present in the
Martian atmosphere was released this
result is now thought to have been
caused by a chemical reaction between
the soil sample and the nutrient
solution as opposed to an indication of
life but at the time and until all the
data returned had a chance to be where
you
analyzed and reanalyzed no one could say
for certain what this reaction meant in
a third experiment that we kind of
laughingly called the chicken soup
experiment we actually tried to grow
some organisms we took a mixture of
delicious terrestrial ingredients are
all sorts of vitamins and minerals
extracts amino acids and sugars all the
goodies that you would use if you were
going to grow up some organisms and the
idea was to inoculate the sample with
these goodies now in the experiment we
had a novel of first stage before we
actually inoculated the sample we wanted
to humidify some terrestrial organisms
that form spores are known to die as a
result of the ingestion of water so the
idea is do we do with spore formers on
the earth we first humidified just
expose it to water and then finally grow
up the offices in the case of that
experiment we had a great surprise
instead of the first humidification
having no result which was what we would
see here on earth we saw enormous
quantities of oxygen that came out of
the sample for reasons that at the time
were very confusing to us we saw this
release of oxygen not at all which we
find here on the on the earth finally
after some thought we figured out what
that oxygen was we finally figured out
that Mars surface of Mars has some
peroxide as though there were kind of
bleach or something spilled on the
surface these were a little like
hydrogen peroxide although there's no
hydrogen peroxide in ours it's proudly
iron peroxide a peroxide is something
that's known to give up oxygen
and when you add water to a peroxide
this oxygen is released a kind of
self-sterilizing surface in a way we
don't know that that's the fact on Mars
but that's a possibility and in fact it
explains what happened in the second
experiment in the second experiment
where we had added the growth media
probably what happened is the peroxide
on Mars reacted with the growth media
and released some of the carbon dioxide
as though it were being broken down by
organisms a kind of chemical reaction so
in fact the two experiments blended
together simple results of the third gas
exchange experiment told us something
about the answer to the second the label
release experiment some of the people
who have been interested then on life on
Mars participated in the Viking mission
in 1975 launched 1976 landing where they
sifted the very fine surface material
and put it into what was called the
Viking biology package and conducted a
series of experiments looking for life
on Mars the results of those experiments
were equivocal there were some reactions
in the experiments that were consistent
with life some that were inconsistent
with life and generally the tie vote got
ascribed to a device called a gasp from
a tog rafi mass spectroscopy device a
the GCMs and the GCMs showed no evidence
for organic material in the soil it
wasn't able to get you know final
evidence that none existed on Mars and
it was only looking at material taking
from about the first four inches of the
surface but because there was no organic
material detectable by the GCMs it was
thought that the reactions that were
seen in the Viking biology package were
inconsistent with life as we know it at
present most scientists and researchers
discount the theory that intelligent
life was ever present on Mars there are
those however who believe that at some
time in Martian history there was
intelligent life on the planet
this minority claims that teachers seen
in certain images returned by the Viking
orbiters of the Martian surface show
signs of past intelligent life there
they feel that some of the features seen
in certain images are actually monuments
left behind by a past Martian base
civilization for us to find and use as a
beacon a beacon to a home in on to find
the remnants of this proposed
civilization although not endorsed by
NASA Richard Hoagland space author and
lecturer because of some of the Viking
images suggest a past intelligent
civilization on Mars set of photographs
taken on the morning of July 25th 1976
came in through the various channels
back to the computers of JPL and then to
those of us who were gathered at PPL to
witness this historic first landing of
spacecraft along another planet and one
of those photographs showed a mile-long
1500 foot high Mesa in the cydonia
region the northern deserts that was
literally out of place it did not belong
he had cried out for explanation if only
for reassurance that it could not be
real because the object look like a
human face it's highly speculative
there's no question about it there's an
interesting I think that this
speculation is all very much interesting
to sell newspapers but there's not a lot
of scientific credibility in it
unfortunately we don't have enough data
to address the question of why this
happens to look like a human face but I
would suggest it most one of the most
adaptive features that humans have is
the ability to recognize human faces in
order to envision that those monuments
were created by a civilization and
intelligent civilization
you really need to extrapolate our
knowledge of evolution and biological
processes enormous ly somehow you have
to envision that life started on Mars
and it evolved very rapidly and
persisted even in the face of adverse
conditions if the planet got colder and
drier it would have been
call for life to have continued somehow
to imagine a civilization there would
have required that it did so the
evidence of the monuments and the faces
is very interesting I think they are
interesting geological features some of
the people who claim that the monuments
on Mars and the face on Mars are indeed
artifacts from an extinct civilization
do not claim that intelligent life or
the life ones that may have constructed
these alleged structures evolved on Mars
rather they say that the beings may have
come from another planet another solar
system or another galaxy the idea that
this supposin complex of structures on
Mars are a construct stems from their
geometric alignment we have found
provocative sets of objects and the
important thing is sets because of the
resolution we're looking at 15 meters
hundred meters you're not going to see
structures of comparable size to those
on earth you're seeing much larger
objects and the only indicator that they
are made by intelligence is their
relative geometric placement well as
other objects Carl Sagan who had some
credentials for for pronouncements in
this area has said that on earth the
first indicator of intelligent design is
the geometric regularity of our
constructions taking that rule of thumb
and applying it to another planet like
Mars if we see a set of objects in a
very particular geometric configuration
the suspicion is raised just the
suspicion maybe we should look closer
unfortunately we only have really good
coverage from Cydonia we do not have
dual sets of pictures taken to two
different Sun angles like we do with
Cydonia in other places both sides do
agree on two points first the face is
indeed a very fascinating image but what
it is or means is still open for
speculation and second that the Mars
Observer spacecraft should definitely be
used return higher resolution images and
more complete imaging than anything
Viking sent back the ultimate answer to
the question of
or these features made by some life-form
were caused by natural processes on the
Martian surface awaits us but until a
human sets foot on the surface of Mars
and can examine the evidence firsthand
we will have to continue to be satisfied
with robotic exploration