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Why NASA still believes we might find life on Mars
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/07/30/why-nasa-still-believes-we-might-find-life-on-mars/
Why NASA still believes we might find life on Mars
By Sarah Kaplan July 30 at 11:20 AM
The day Gil Levin says he detected life on Mars, he was waiting in his lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, watching a piece of paper inch out of a printer.
<snip>
"I was sort of trembling, you know?" he recalled. It was July 30, 1976.
Forty years later, Levin and Straat still believe that their experiment was evidence of microbiotic Martians. But few people agree with them. To NASA, and to most scientists, the 1976 Viking mission was a technical triumph but a biological bust. Scientists, such as Carl Sagan, who had wagered that large organisms "are not only possible on Mars; they may be favored," were disappointed to see images the lander sent back of a dry, barren planet. Two experiments aimed at finding life turned up negative, and NASA concluded that the results of Levin's test, called the Labeled Release experiment, could be explained by chemical processes rather than biological ones.
<snip>
But hope was in the air at Langley Research Center last week, where NASA held a two-day conference to honor the 40th anniversary of the Viking landing. After decades of pointedly not looking for it, the space agency is more optimistic than it's been since 1976 that it might find life on Mars yet.
<snip>
The issue with the Viking experiments is that they expected to find too much too soon, speaker after speaker explained over the course of the conference. Detecting life with Viking would have been a breakthrough of unprecedented proportions, and science doesn't usually happen that way. Most "breakthroughs" come after years of accumulating incremental increases in knowledge.
<snip>
This kind of talk is frustrating for Levin, who has held for 30 years that life on Mars has already been detected. At the anniversary event Wednesday, he exhorted the audience, "there is no scientifically acceptable explanation to the Labeled Release experiments on Mars, except life."
Off stage, Levin admitted he was surprised he was invited to speak at the conference (when he announced his opinion at the 10th anniversary celebration, he says he was pelted with shrimp).
<snip>
Why NASA still believes we might find life on Mars
By Sarah Kaplan July 30 at 11:20 AM
The day Gil Levin says he detected life on Mars, he was waiting in his lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, watching a piece of paper inch out of a printer.
<snip>
"I was sort of trembling, you know?" he recalled. It was July 30, 1976.
Forty years later, Levin and Straat still believe that their experiment was evidence of microbiotic Martians. But few people agree with them. To NASA, and to most scientists, the 1976 Viking mission was a technical triumph but a biological bust. Scientists, such as Carl Sagan, who had wagered that large organisms "are not only possible on Mars; they may be favored," were disappointed to see images the lander sent back of a dry, barren planet. Two experiments aimed at finding life turned up negative, and NASA concluded that the results of Levin's test, called the Labeled Release experiment, could be explained by chemical processes rather than biological ones.
<snip>
But hope was in the air at Langley Research Center last week, where NASA held a two-day conference to honor the 40th anniversary of the Viking landing. After decades of pointedly not looking for it, the space agency is more optimistic than it's been since 1976 that it might find life on Mars yet.
<snip>
The issue with the Viking experiments is that they expected to find too much too soon, speaker after speaker explained over the course of the conference. Detecting life with Viking would have been a breakthrough of unprecedented proportions, and science doesn't usually happen that way. Most "breakthroughs" come after years of accumulating incremental increases in knowledge.
<snip>
This kind of talk is frustrating for Levin, who has held for 30 years that life on Mars has already been detected. At the anniversary event Wednesday, he exhorted the audience, "there is no scientifically acceptable explanation to the Labeled Release experiments on Mars, except life."
Off stage, Levin admitted he was surprised he was invited to speak at the conference (when he announced his opinion at the 10th anniversary celebration, he says he was pelted with shrimp).
<snip>
Gil Levin will be vindicated, eventually.
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The surface of Mars has been scrubbed by horrible conditions which include next to no atmosphere, horribly cold temperatures, and deadly radiation.
One has to get below all of that to be able to live.
We may see soon, if a NASA mission does what is undoubtedly necessary.
R&K
