Robot Explorers: A Mars program for the 1970s 1966

Robot Explorers: A Mars program for the 1970s 1966.

Once upon a time there was a Red Planet covered in vegetation and maybe possessing some kind of animal life with an atmosphere perhaps 1/10th our own, made of carbon dioxide (which spectroscopes could see) and probably mostly nitrogen (which spectroscopes couldn’t see.)

In 1965 that hopeful illusion was shattered when Mariner IV flew past Mars and discovered an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide that was 1/10th of the hoped for 1/10th. All that was seen of the surface was craters and Mars suddenly seemed a lot more like the Moon, and a lot less like a home for life. After 1971’s Mariner IX orbiter the planet had regained some interest, but the damage was done – all the proposed Manned Mars Missions had been rejected and very few held much hope for Life. But, by the end of 1976, even the hope we had for microbial life was in doubt. An ambiguous single positive out of three different life-tests carried by the twin Viking landers meant if there was Life it was hiding.

Today, 33 years later, and more than a few probes and rovers later, we know there’s lots of water-ice, there might be out-flows of briny water briefly, and there was acidic ground-water long ago, but Mars still hasn’t revealed any Life to us. We’re reluctant to give up the Search, but maybe Mars really is dead.