Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bevan M. French
Chief, Extraterrestrial Materials Research Program
Office of Lunar and Planetary Programs
Office of Space Sciences, NASA
EP-146
October 1977
NASA
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
Table of Contents
The New Arrival 5
Why Mars? 5
Viking to Seek Answers 6
The Viking Spacecraft 6
A Viking's-Eye View 8
The Winds of Mars 12
The Chemistry of Mars 18
Three Chances for Life 20
From Mars to Einstein 22
What Next? 24
Appendix
Suggestions for Further Reading 32
Experiments and Activities 33
Suggested Viewing 36
Radioisotope thermoelectri
Terminal desce
radar (underside of
Furlable boom
Lander structure)
Collector head
Magnets
A Viking's-Eye View
deep gullies, scattered craters, and spacecraft was sterilized by heating it The safe landing of Viking 1
rugged outcrops of rock-no place to to temperatures above the boiling immediately established one basic fact
land a spacecraft which had only 22 point of water. Each Lander, and all of about Mars: the planet's surface is
centimeters (8 '12 inches) of ground its 1 million separate parts, had to strong enough to support a heavy
clearance. While the photographs survive a number of major crises: the machine. The Lander rested firmly on
were being scanned, the large radio sterilization heating, the shock and a rolling plain strewn with rocks, and
telescopes at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, vibration of launch, a one-year, 400- the cameras on the Lander began
and Goldstone, California, bounced million mile trip through interplanetary almost immediately to transmit back to
radar waves off Mars, using the radar space, the passage through Mars' Earth the first views of the Martian
reflections to measure the roughness atmosphere, and the landing on its landscape.
of the planet's surface in different surface. No wonder there were Viking's cameras stood about 1.6
regions. First one landing site was heartfelt cheers from the scientists and meters (5 feet) above the ground, and
rejected, and then another. Finally, a engineers when Viking 1's first pictures their view of Mars was much like what
new site was located, photographed, began to appear! a person standing in the same place
scanned with radar, and found The Landers are so well designed would see. The two cameras could be
acceptable, and Viking 1 descended that it is often possible to fix them operated independently to provide
to a perfect landing in a level rolling when things go wrong. When the panoramas covering almost a full
region called the Plains of Chryse. A sampling arm on Viking 1 got stuck, a circle around the Lander. They could
little more than a month later, after a carefully-planned series of commands be operated together to produce
similar thorough check of a more from Earth freed it, and the cameras stereo pictures from which the shape
northern region of Mars, the Viking 2 then showed that a small pin which of the surrounding surface could be
Lander made an equally flawless had caused the trouble had fallen free accurately measured (Figure 4). Most
landing on the Plains of Utopia. Two to the ground. Later, when the arm of the pictures were black-and-white,
Landers sit on the surface of Mars, stuck again, this time in an extended but different detectors inside the
while two Orbiters circle overhead, position, a different series of cameras were sometimes used to
photographing the planet and relaying commands brought it safely back into provide pictures that reproduced the
back to Earth the news of what the the spacecraft. Each of these "repairs" actual hues of the Martian surface.
Landers find. was a carefully-planned operation. The first pictures showed firm soil
The Landers on the surface of Mars Each set of commands was first tested and scattered rocks immediately
are far more complex than any on a duplicate Viking Lander sitting on beneath the Lander. As the cameras
automatic spacecraft launched before. a simulated Martian surface at the looked out to the horizon, they
Even if the Landers had never left NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and photographed a gently rolling red
Earth, their design and construction the cameras on the real Viking were landscape that could almost have
would still be an impressive used to check the progress of the been a desert scene in the American
technological achievement. Each "repairs" at every step. Southwest. The reddish gray soil was
lander looks like a cluttered six-sided With the minor troubles corrected, dotted with rocks of all sizes. The
workbench with three legs (Figure 2) the Landers even took on new tasks colors of the rocks varied from dark
but it contains the equivalent of two that had not been planned before the gray to light gray to slightly reddish
power stations, two computer centers, landing. After digging up samples of (Figure 5). Some rocks showed up in
a TV studio, a weather station, an exposed soil, the Lander's sampl~ng great detail, and many were filled with
earthquake detector, two chemical arm was used to push large rocks bubbles. These rocks looked like the
laboratories (one for organic and one aside and to collect samples of the lavas produced by erupting gas-rich
for inorganic analyses), three separate protected soil beneath them (Figure 3). volcanoes on Earth, and scientists
~ncubatorsfor any Martian life, a scoop think that the bedrock on which both
and backhoe for digging trenches and Vikings have landed is made up of
collecting soil samples, and miniature ancient Martian lava flows.
ra~lroadcars for delivering the samples The Viking cameras also saw wind-
to the laboratories and incubators. produced features that have familiar
Equipment that would normally fill counterparts in Earth's deserts.
several buildings had been designed Although the atmosphere of Mars is
in miniature to fit on a spacecraft less th~n,its winds are still strong enough
than 3 meters (10 feet) across. to blow dust and fine sand across the
Furthermore, to avoid contaminating surface. There are dunes of light-
Mars with Earthly bacteria, the entire colored sand, and detailed pictures of
the dunes revealed finer ripples within
them (Figure 6). There are places
where the wind apparently scoured out
the fine soil, revealing flat masses of
Figure 3. "Mr. Badger" Gets a Nudge.
Controlled by scientists back on Earth, the
sampling arm on the Vrkng 2 Lander
reaches out to push aside a large porous
rock and to collect a sample of the
protected Martian soil beneath it. Because
of its shape, the rock was rnformally
christened "Mr. Badger" after a character
in Kenneth Grahame's book, The Wind m
the Wrllows. The Mart~an"Mr. Badger" is
about 25 centmeters (10 ~nches)long and
we~ghsseveral pounds