Did Viking Find Life?

Klein’s task as head of the biology group was exceedingly difficult. There were three chief experimenters: Gil Levin, Norm Horowitz, and Vance Oyama. Levin was a private-sector researcher, a PhD in sanitary engineering, whose experiment was called “Labeled Release.” Oyama was a NASA Ames biochem­ist, and his experiment was called “Gas Exchange.” Horowitz was a Caltech geneticist, and his experiment was known as “Pyrolytic Release.” The three men—especially Levin and Horowitz—disliked one another intensely. Horow­itz was openly contemptuous of Levin’s and Oyama’s experiments and called them “irrelevant.” Klein got the nickname “Rabbi,” for his efforts to keep peace among the researchers.69

Once Viking had settled on the ground a few days, the experimenters’ work commenced. The activity was slow and painstaking but gradually produced re­sults that some of the biologists found extremely provocative. NASA policy was that the scientists announce results quickly, as they became available, along with statements about confidence and uncertainty. The first promising results gained conspicuous headlines. But then, after a few more days, results from Viking looked less promising, and this fact was also reported by the media, but with lesser prominence. The problem was that some of the findings were compatible with life, but they could also be interpreted as reflecting evidence of a “strange and unexpected Martian surface chemistry.” Klein declared, “We have at least very preliminary evidence for a very active surface material. … [It looks] very much like a biological signal.” On the other hand, it could be chemical data that “may mimic biological activity.”70

Levin thought that his experiment was credible as to identifying life. It had been his test that had provided initial enthusiasm. “The cork literally popped,” recalled Soffen. But then the scientists took a closer look. At this point, Soffen recalled, “No one wanted to say [publicly] ‘We found it,’ and then say ‘sorry’— the whole credibility of science is shot to hell! So there was a lot of resistance to getting up and saying there was life.”71 What Klein did say was that “Mars is really talking to us and telling us something. The question is whether Mars is talking with a forked tongue or giving us the straight dope.”72 Was it life or bizarre chemistry that Mars was communicating? Then, on August 12, came results from the GCMS. It could not find any life-indicating organic molecules. This came as a profound shock to many Viking participants. For Soffen, the GCMS findings—no positive findings—were “a real wipe out.” Informed of these results, Soffen said to himself, “That’s the ball game. No organics on Mars, no life on Mars.”73

Not everyone shared Soffen’s gloom, but the results were surprising and dis­appointing. It was subsequently surmised that Mars’s ultraviolet sunlight pro­duced highly reactive compounds that broke down the organic molecules.74 But who knew for sure what was going on?

On September 2, Fletcher wrote President Ford that Viking was providing significant information about Mars’s geology, atmosphere, and planetary evolu­tion. However, “the search for forms of life remains inconclusive.”75

A lot now depended on Viking 2, the enhanced significance of which the media reported. The second Viking had been circling Mars for some time and was set to land September 3. As with Viking 1, there had been issues with where to land, and alternatives searched, but those questions had now been resolved. It would set down at a place called Utopia Plain, hundreds of miles to the north and halfway around the planet from the Viking 1 site. Whereas the first Viking landed at a Mars latitude equivalent to that on Earth of Mexico City, Viking 2 would land at the Mars latitude analogous to that of Montreal.76

The landing was successful, and again the president congratulated NASA. There was renewed hope. Soffen said that the discovery of even the simplest organic compound—inextricably associated with life as we know it—“would do it for us.”77 Once again, the biology experiments found indications compat­ible with life. But that was not strong enough proof for most Viking scientists. Hopes were pinned on the GCMS instrument once more in the quest for or – ganics.78 By the end of September, NASA had many enticing findings, but hard and convincing evidence for life was still not there. As Klein had feared, the promising results could have resulted from “a bizarre chemical system beyond immediate explanation.”79 The GCMS data were again negative. On October 1, the New York Times reported that Viking 2 had found “no organic matter,” and while results were “preliminary,” Viking scientists conceded that the findings “did not bode well for life-on-Mars theories.”80 Levin did not go along with the consensus. He told his fellow researchers, “We agreed at the outset that if the results came out a certain way, we’d say ‘yes’ to life. My experiment came out this way. I discovered life.”81 But Horowitz “overpowered Levin,” and he persuaded the others that Levin had not done so.82