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A former NASA scientist has written that he is convinced that the U.S. space agency "found evidence of life" on Mars in the 1970s, but the data was largely ignored.
The stunning admission by Gilbert Levin—the former principal investigator for the Labeled Release (LR) experiment on NASA's Viking mission to Mars—came in an op-ed recently published in Scientific American.
In the article, the engineer and inventor is clear that he believes he found convincing proof of the existence of living microorganisms on Mars in 1976, but the agency has since been unwilling to acknowledge what he sees as a clear fact.
Levin is hardly a conspiracy theorist or fringe "UFOlogist," either—in addition to participating in that important 1976 NASA mission, he's a respected engineer and inventor who founded the successful research company Spherix.
In the op-ed titled "I'm Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s
"On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars.
"Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart."
Continuing, he wrote:
"The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth.
"It seemed we had answered that ultimate question.
Sour grapes from a disgruntled investigator or something worth further investigation?
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday January 16 2020, @07:20PM (2 children)
I think the point was, once Musk gets there he's going to throw off all test results looking for life, since he has no profit motive to do otherwise. I tend to agree with that, although he might have other motivations which got him into the space/electric car markets to begin with.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday January 16 2020, @08:07PM (1 child)
That is how I read it as well, and I completely understand the search for a second biogenesis as a huge motivation for planetary protection.
Where I stumble is with the calls, and I assure you they will come, to ban manned exploration of Mars for that reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @10:50PM
NASA already banned anyone from landing near the Apollo landing sites and taking pics.