The Sirens of Mars

by Sarah Stewart Johnson

  “HAVE HIS SAY” Cooper, The Search for Life on Mars: Evolution of an Idea, p. 98.

  $59 MILLION “Viking Lander: Creating the Science Teams,” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  CLOUDINESS MIGHT RESULT Joshua Lederberg, “Letter to Dr. Richard S. Young, March 15, 1972,” Joshua Lederberg Papers, 1904–2008. Located in: Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.; MS C 552.

  REQUIRED CONDITIONS OF GROWTH “Viking Lander: Creating the Science Teams,” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  DROWN ANY MARTIAN LIFE Cooper, The Search for Life on Mars: Evolution of an Idea, pp. 99–100.

  “THAT I RECAPTURE SOME” Wolf V. Vishniac, quoted in “Viking Lander: Creating the Science Teams,” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  HE HAD A WEAK ARM Ephraim Vishniac, phone interview by Sarah Johnson (Sept. 8, 2017).

  HE HAD A STUTTER Ibid.

  “KNOWING SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHEMISTRY” Ibid.

  “ALWAYS IN GOOD WEATHER” Zeddie Bowen, quoted in Sheehan and O’Meara, Mars: The Lure of the Red Planet, p. 289.

  “SOME FASCINATING NEW DISCOVERY” Zeddie Bowen, quoted in Ricki Lewis, “Researchers’ Deaths Inspire Actions to Improve Safety,” The Scientist (Oct. 27, 1997).

  TRANSFERRED HOME TO ROCHESTER Associated Press, “Wolf V. Vishniac, Micro Biologist,” The New York Times (Dec. 12, 1973).

  THE FUNERAL Sagan penned Vishniac’s obituary. In it, he underscored what “a remarkably honest, kind, tactful, and thoughtful human being” Vishniac had been, how he had “a deep sense of the fundamental problems of biology and, more than almost all of the other scientists of his time, realized the revolutionary significance for science of the search for extraterrestrial life.” Carl Sagan, “Wolf Vladimir Vishniac: An Obituary,” Icarus, vol. 22, issue 3 (1974), pp. 397–398.

  READY FOR DELIVERY “Viking Lander: Creating the Science Teams,” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  GAS FOR FORTY HOURS Eric Burgess, To the Red Planet (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), p. 63.

  EVEN TRACES OF TRANSIENT LIQUID WATER We now have a great deal of evidence for transient liquid brines on the surface on Mars; see: F. Javier Martín-Torres, María-Paz Zorzano, Patricia Valentín-Serrano, Ari-Matti Harri, Maria Genzer, Osku Kemppinen, Edgard G. Rivera-Valentin, et al., “Transient Liquid Water and Water Activity at Gale Crater on Mars,” Nature Geoscience, 8, no. 5 (2015), p. 357.

  FROM PASSING CLOUDS “The Viking Landing Sites: The Questions They’ll Answer,” in Mars Viking (Redondo Beach, Calif.: TRW, 1976), pp. 14.

  JUNE OF 1976 “Yuty Crater in Chryse Planitia, Mars,” NASA (June 22, 1976).

  DAMPENING THE CONTRAST “Site Certification—and Landing,” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  “DON’T UNDERSTAND MARS” “Science: Another Delay for Viking,” Time (July 19, 1976).

  TIME WAS SHORT Viking 1 entered into orbit on June 19, 1976, but soon it was clear a July 4 landing was out of the question. Viking 2 was scheduled to enter orbit on August 7. At an anniversary event, Tom Young, Viking’s mission director, recalled that if Viking 1’s “landing was delayed too long there would be a traffic jam at Mars that was beyond our capability to manage.” Sam McDonald, “ ‘Viking at 40’ Events Revisit a Giant Step in NASA’s Journey to Mars,” NASA (July 26, 2016).

  NEXT TWO WEEKS Sagan, Cosmos, p. 98; see also “Site Certification—And Landing” in Ezell and Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978.

  SIXTEEN METERS WIDE “Viking 1 Lander,” NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, NSSDCA/COSPAR ID: 1975-075C, NASA.

  “WAVING HELPLESSLY” Sagan, Cosmos, p. 96.

  THE DESCENT CAPSULE BARRELED “Viking 1 Lander,” NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, NSSDCA/COSPAR ID: 1975-075C, NASA.

  RETROROCKETS The fuel was hydrazine, N2H4, which wouldn’t form organics as a product of combustion; this would minimize the risk that the landing itself would contaminate the lander’s surface science findings.

  COULD LAND ON ANOTHER PLANET The Soviet Mars 3 mission landed on Mars and survived for about ninety seconds. The Soviet Venera missions also survived an hour or two on the surface on Venus.

  VELLUM AND NOTEPADS At the “Viking at 40” Symposium in 2016, JPL’s Robert Manning remarked, “Viking is an amazing accomplishment. Those of us who do it now have a really hard time conceiving how you could build and design this thing before computers were really popular. You did it by hand, with paper, vellum, notepads.” McDonald, “ ‘Viking at 40’ Events Revisit a Giant Step in NASA’s Journey to Mars,” NASA.

  SMALLER THAN THE ROSE BOWL Rebecca Wright, “Interview with A. Thomas Young,” NASA Headquarters Oral History Project, NASA Johnson Space Center History Portal (2013).

  A HUNDRED METERS ACROSS “Viking Encounter Press Kit,” NASA (June 4, 1976), p. 18.

  CHEERILY SINGING This story about Gerry Soffen, Viking’s project scientist, was recounted by Gus Guastaferro in “40 Years Remembered: a Shared Experience in Viking Project Leadership,” Viking at 40 Symposium Lectures (2016). He may have been referring to the Irving Berlin song with the lyrics, “Blue skies smiling at me; Nothing but blue skies do I see.”

  COLOR ON THE LANDER’S FACSIMILE CAMERAS Elliott C. Levinthal, William Green, Kenneth L. Jones, and Robert Tucker, “Processing the Viking Lander Camera Data,” Journal of Geophysical Research 82, no. 28 (1977), pp. 4,412–4,420.

  DISCOVERED THAT THE SKY Poundstone, Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos, p. 207.

  EAGERLY STUDIED THEM Ibid., pp. 204–205.

  “CHOSEN DULL PLACES” Sagan, Cosmos, p. 98.

  “BIG JOE” “Big Joe in the Chryse Planitia,” NASA JPL (Feb. 27, 1997).

  ROCKS HAD GOTTEN UP Of course, no Martian macrobes ever ambled by, despite special computer techniques designed to reveal movement or changes in scene and search for objects that emitted light in the night. A year later, a Journal of Geophysical Research paper concluded that “no evidence, direct or indirect, has been obtained for macroscopic biology on Mars.” David McNab and James Younger, The Planets (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 193; Elliott C. Levinthal, Kenneth L. Jones, Paul Fox, and Carl Sagan, “Lander imaging as a detector of life on Mars,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 82, no. 28 (1977), pp. 4,468–4,478.

  ROCK NAMED “SHADOW” McNab and Younger, The Planets, p. 191.

  “HOPPERS ON AN ELECTRIC TRAIN” Sagan, Cosmos, p. 102.

  “WE SENT OUT AND GOT CHAMPAGNE, CIGARS” Gil Levin, “The Viking Labeled Release Biology Experiments,” Viking at 40 Symposium Lectures (2016).

  SOLEMNLY SAT DOWN Cooper, The Search for Life on Mars: Evolution of an Idea, p. 129.

  GAS CHROMATOGRAPH-MASS SPECTROMETER Ibid., pp. 161–169.

  NEARLY EVERYONE CONCLUDED Ibid., pp. 223–240. One notable exception was Gil Levin, the lead of the Labeled Release experiment. See Levin, “The Viking Labeled Release Experiment and Life on Mars,” Instruments, Methods, and Missions for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Microorganisms, vol. 3111, International Society for Optics and Photonics (1997), pp. 146–161.

  HOROWITZ DECLARED Robert Markley, Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), p. 258.

  “PLACIDLY MUNCHING” Walter Sullivan, “How to Search for Undefined ‘Life’ on Mars,” The New York Times (August 1, 1976).

  GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL MONUMENT Peter Ward, Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life (New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 177. Great Sands Dunes National Monument was re-designated as a national park and nat
ional preserve in 2000.

  NOT EVEN SAGAN Cooper, The Search for Life on Mars: Evolution of an Idea, p. 122.

  Chapter 5: Stone from the Sky

  WHAT HE KNEW ABOUT BIOLOGY When the Viking payload was being designed, no one realized that the vast majority of microbes wouldn’t grow in a nutrient-rich broth—in other words, that they couldn’t be cultured. It wasn’t until we started identifying life by its genes—not waiting for cells to grow in a petri dish but instead breaking them open within a pinch of dirt or a drop of ocean—that we came to understand that less than 1 percent of the life on Earth could be grown in a lab or, by extension, a lab on a spacecraft on Mars.

  THE “LIFELESS” SOILS Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978 (Washington, D.C.: The NASA History Series, 1984), p. 236.

  ALSO COMPLEX EUKARYOTES Helen S. Vishniac and Walter P. Hempfling, “Cryptococcus Vishniacii sp. nov., an Antarctic Yeast,” International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 29, no. 2 (1979), pp. 153–158.

  “SAMPLES FOR IMRE FRIEDMANN” Peter T. Doran, W. Berry Lyons, and Diane M. McKnight, Life in Antarctic Deserts and Other Cold Dry Environments: Astrobiological Analogs (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 2–3.

  PUBLISHED HIS RESULTS E. Imre Friedmann and Roseli Ocampo, “Endolithic Blue-Green Algae in the Dry Valleys: Primary Producers in the Antarctic Desert Ecosystem,” Science, 193, no. 4,259 (1976), pp. 1,247–1,249.

  A RICH AND INTRICATE ECOSYSTEM Richard A. Kerr, “Seawater and the Ocean Crust: The Hot and Cold of It,” Science, 200, no. 4,346 (1978), pp. 1,138–1,187.

  THERMUS AQUATICUS The discovery of a heat-tolerant polymerase within Thermus aquaticus cells would lay the foundation for modern molecular biology. The finding paved the way for the development of the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which enabled double-stranded DNA to unzip at high temperatures and be replicated, amplifying a tiny signal millions of times. Kary B. Mullis, “The Polymerase Chain Reaction (Nobel Lecture),” Angewandte Chemie, 33, 12 (1994), pp. 1,209–1,213; A. Chien, D. B. Edgar, J. M. Trela, “Deoxyribonucleic Acid Polymerase from the Extreme Thermophile Thermus Aquaticus,” Journal of Bacteriology, 127 (3) (1976), p. 1,550–1,557; Thomas D. Brock and Hudson Freeze, “Thermus aquaticus gen. n. and sp. n., a Nonsporulating Extreme Thermophile,” Journal of Bacteriology, 98, no. 1 (1969).

  PSEUDOMONAS BATHYCETES R. Y. Morita, “Survival of Bacteria in Cold and Moderate Hydrostatic Pressure Environments with Special Reference to Psychrophilic and Barophilic Bacteria” (1976), pp. 279–298; R. G. Gray and J. R. Postgate, eds., “The Survival of Vegetative Microbes” (Cambridge University Press: 1976).

  DEINOCOCCUS RADIODURANS M.T. Hansen, “Multiplicity of Genome Equivalents in the Radiation-Resistant Bacterium Micrococcus Radiodurans,” Journal of Bacteriology, 134, no. 1 (1978), pp. 71–75; Bevan E. B. Moseley, “Photobiology and Radiobiology of Micrococcus (Deinococcus) Radiodurans,” in Photochemical and Photobiological Reviews (Boston: Springer, 1983), pp. 223–274; Julia M.West and Ian G. McKinley, “The Geomicrobiology of Nuclear Waste Disposal,” MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive, 26 (1983).

  SMALL DARK SPOT For a fascinating description of the unfolding of ALH84001 story, from which many of this chapter’s details are drawn, see: Kathy Sawyer, The Rock From Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets (New York: Random House, 2006).

  ABLATES AWAY W. A. Cassidy, E. Olsen, and K. Yanai, “Antarctica: a Deep-Freeze Storehouse for Meteorites,” Science, 198, no. 4318 (1977), pp. 727–731.

  ALH84001 TRAVELED BACK Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 20.

  LIKELY FROM VESTA Ibid., pp. 49–50.

  NEARBY BUILDING 31 Mimi Swartz, “It Came from Outer Space,” Texas Monthly (Nov. 1, 1996).

  SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF FRAGMENTS Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, pp. 51, 58–59.

  “WHY CHOOSE THIS” John F. Kennedy, “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort,” John. F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (Sept. 12, 1962).

  “FAIRY TALES EVEN PROBABLE” W. F. Foshag, “Problems in the Study of Meteorites,” The American Mineralogist, 26, no. 3 (1941), p. 137.

  THE NAME “THUNDERSTONES” Megan Garber, “Thunderstone: What People Thought About Meteorites Before Modern Astronomy,” The Atlantic (Feb. 15, 2013).

  “WORLD FRAGMENTS” Foshag, “Problems in the Study of Meteorites,” The American Mineralogist, p. 137.

  METEORITE CALLED SNC Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 53.

  SHERGOTTY The town in India is now known as Sherghati.

  ON A DOG T. E Bunch and Arch M. Reid. “The Nakhlites Part I: Petrography and Mineral Chemistry.” Meteoritics 10, no. 4 (1975), pp. 303–315.

  THE DIRECT MEASUREMENTS D. D. Bogard and P. Johnson, “Martian Gases in an Antarctic Meteorite?” Science, 221 (1983), pp. 651–654; see also: Allan H. Treiman, James D. Gleason, Donald D. Bogard, “The SNC Meteorites Are from Mars,” Planetary and Space Science, 48 (2000), pp. 1,213–1,230.

  OLDEST ROCK The date for ALH84001 has since been revised, from 4.51 to 4.091 billion years, and a Martian meteorite that was recently discovered in the Sahara, nicknamed Black Beauty, has replaced ALH84001 as the oldest Martian meteorite (it dates to 4.4 billion years). T. J. Lapen, M. Righter, A. D. Brandon, Vinciane Debaille, B. L. Beard, J. T. Shafer, and A. H. Peslier, “A Younger Age for ALH84001 and Its Geochemical Link to Shergottite Sources in Mars,” Science, 328, no. 5976 (2010), pp. 347–351; M. Humayun, Alexander Nemchin, B. Zanda, R. H. Hewins, Marion Grange, Allen Kennedy, J. P. Lorand, et al., “Origin and Age of the Earliest Martian Crust from Meteorite NWA 7533,” Nature, 503, no. 7477 (2013), p. 513.

  SIXTEEN MILLION YEARS AGO D. D. Bogard, “Exposure-Age-Initiating Events for Martian Meteorites: Three or Four?” Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 26 (1995).

  LISTEN TO ENYA Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 103.

  ORANGEY KNOBS OF CARBONATE David S. McKay, Everett K. Gibson, Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta, Hojatollah Vali, Christopher S. Romanek, Simon J. Clemett, Xavier D. F. Chillier, Claude R. Maechling, and Richard N. Zare, “Search for Past Life on Mars: Possible Relic Biogenic Activity in Martian Meteorite ALH84001,” Science, 273, no. 5277 (1996), pp. 924–930.

  TINY COMPASSES J. L. Kirschvink, “South-Seeking Magnetic Bacteria,” Journal of Experimental Biology, 86, no. 1 (1980), pp. 345–347; Wei Lin, Dennis A. Bazylinski, Tian Xiao, Long-Fei Wu, and Yongxin Pan, “Life with Compass: Diversity and Biogeography of Magnetotactic Bacteria,” Environmental Microbiology, 16, no. 9 (2014), pp. 2,646–2,658.

  ALSO EXTRAORDINARILY PURE Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta, et al., “Magnetofossils from Ancient Mars: A Robust Biosignature in the Martian Meteorite ALH84001,” Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 68, no. 8 (2002), pp. 3,663–3,672.

  TRYING TO BE CASUAL Swartz, “It Came from Outer Space,” Texas Monthly.

  INCLUDING CARL SAGAN Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 111.

  TUCKED A SKYPAGER Ibid., p. 137.

  THE STORY OF HIS ROCK WAS EVERYWHERE Ibid.

  PRESIDENT CLINTON STEPPED William Jefferson Clinton, “Statement Regarding Mars Meteorite Discovery,” Office of the Press Secretary (Aug. 7, 1996).

  THE FRONT ROW Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 186.

  “UNBELIEVABLE DAY” Keay Davidson, “Romancing the Red Planet,” San Francisco Examiner (Aug. 8, 1996).

  TWO HUNDRED TO TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS Swartz, “It Came from Outer Space,” Texas Monthly.

  EXTREMELY CAREFUL SCIENTIST John Noble Wilford, “Clues in Meteorite Seem to Show Signs of Life on Mars Long Ago,” The New York Times (Aug. 7, 1996).

  BIG ENOUGH TO ENCAPSULATE Space Studi
es Board and National Research Council, Size Limits of Very Small Microorganisms: Proceedings of a Workshop (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 1999).

  OWN BROTHER GORDON Matt Crenson, “After 10 Years, Few Believe Life on Mars,” The Washington Post (Aug. 5, 2006).

  “FURTHER STRENGTHENED” David S. McKay, Kathy L. Thomas-Keprta, Simon J. Clemett, Everett K. Gibson Jr, Lauren Spencer, and Susan J. Wentworth, “Life on Mars: New Evidence from Martian Meteorites,” Instruments and Methods for Astrobiology and Planetary Missions XII, vol. 7441 (International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2009), p. 744,102. See also: Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta, et al., “Origins of Magnetite Nanocrystals in Martian Meteorite ALH84001,” Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 73 (2009), pp. 6,631–6,677; Everett K. Gibson Jr., David S. McKay, Kathie L. Thomas-Keprta, S. J. Wentworth, F. Westall, Andrew Steele, Christopher S. Romanek, M. S. Bell, and J. Toporski, “Life on Mars: Evaluation of the Evidence within Martian Meteorites ALH84001, Nakhla, and Shergotty,” Precambrian Research, 106, no. 1–2 (2001), pp. 15–34.

  “A LITTLE TESTY” Crenson, “After 10 Years, Few Believe Life on Mars,” The Washington Post.

  KIMONOS FROM THE TIME Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 42; William K. Stevens, “A ‘Mellow’ Scientist David Stewart McKay,” The New York Times (August 9, 1996).

  QUADRUPLE BYPASS HEART SURGERY Sawyer, The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets, p. 236; Marc Kaufman, First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), p. 107.

  “EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS REQUIRE” Carl Sagan, quoted in Patrizio E. Tressoldi, “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences,” Frontiers in Psychology, 2 (2011), p. 117.

  “YET EXTRAORDINARY ENOUGH” Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (New York: Ballantine, 1998), p. 60.