The Search for Martian Life Begins: 1959-1965

When the Viking spacecraft was launched to Mars in 1975, three biological experiments and a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, instruments with an intellectual and technological history reaching back to the early days of American space science, were on board. A systematic study of the evolution of the Martian surface and atmosphere was conceived with the following goals: (1) determination of the physical and chemical conditions of the martian surface as a potential environment for life; (2) determination whether life is or was present on Mars; (3) determination of the characteristics of that life, if present; and (4) investigation of the pattern of chemical evolution without life.