![]() Several thousand runs were made, both before and after Viking, with terrestrial soils and microbial cultures, both in the laboratory and in extreme natural environments. The Viking LR sought to detect and monitor ongoing metabolism, a very simple and fail-proof indicator of living microorganisms. A heat control, similar to Pasteur’s, was added to determine whether any response obtained was biological or chemical. But on Mars, each LR experiment continued for seven days. These enhancements made the LR sensitive to the very low microbial populations postulated for Mars, should any be there, and reduced the time for detection of terrestrial microorganisms to about one hour. This standard test, in essence, was the LR test on Mars, modified by the addition of several nutrients thought to broaden the prospects for success with alien organisms, and the tagging of the nutrients with radioactive carbon. Billions of people are thus protected against microbial pathogens. (Pasteur had earlier determinted that heating, or pasteurizing, such a substance would kill the microbes.) This elegantly simple test, updated to substitute modern microbial nutrients with the hay-infusion products in Pasteur’s, is in daily use by health authorities around the world to examine potable water. ![]() Prior to containing living microorganisms, no bubbles appeared. He allowed microbes to contaminate a hay-infusion broth, after which bubbles of their expired gas appeared. NASA’s reservation against a direct search for microorganisms ignores the simplicity of the task accomplished by Louis Pasteur in 1864. There are even reports of the survival of microorganisms exposed to naked space outside the International Space Station (ISS). That some Earth microbial species could survive the Martian environment has been demonstrated in many laboratories. A tiny fraction of this material eventually lands on the other planet, perhaps infecting it with microbiological hitch-hikers. NASA scientist Chris McKay once said that Mars and Earth have been “swapping spit” for billions of years, meaning that, when either planet is hit by comets or large meteorites, some ejecta shoot into space. On the other hand, it would take a near miracle for Mars to be sterile. Thus, the issue of life on Mars is now front and center. Any life there might threaten them, and us upon their return. Our nation has now committed to sending astronauts to Mars. On February 13, 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said we might find microbial life on Mars. NASA maintains the search for alien life among its highest priorities. Instead the agency launched a series of missions to Mars to determine whether there was ever a habitat suitable for life and, if so, eventually to bring samples to Earth for biological examination. Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results. ![]() When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life. ![]() It seemed we had answered that ultimate question. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. I was fortunate to have participated in that historic adventure as experimenter of the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment on NASA’s spectacular Viking mission to Mars in 1976. Yet, equally remarkable, we have no generally accepted information as to whether other life exists beyond us, or whether we are, as was Samuel Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, “alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea!” We have made only one exploration to solve that primal mystery. We have learned much about the laws of nature that control its seemingly infinite celestial bodies, their evolution, motions and possible fate. We humans can now peer back into the virtual origin of our universe.
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