Viking Mission and Evidence of Life on Mars

    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.



    https://blogs.scientificameric…ontent=link&ICID=ref_fark

    I have a theory about that (well, it's not MY theory because the author of "Red Mars" depicted a future where this was a huge controversy)


    IN the novel Red Mars, one of the first female scientists that goes to the planet during colonization is firmly opposed to terraformation because she wants to protect native Martian life and wants the planet to stay pristine. If the planet is BELIEVED to be completely sterile, then it will be easier to argue in favor of terraformation (which may destroy native life forms).


    So if NASA knows of life there and does not divulge it, it may be that it anticipates strong resistance to future terraformation (which will be very expensive and hard to sell to tax payers, if funded publicly)


    BY the way, NASA just announced the graduation of 13 new astronauts that may go to Mars.

    "Please always remember my doctrines!" - Epicurus' last words

    Love 1

    That's an interesting theory that I had not heard before - makes sense. I also don't doubt that at very high levels there is probably "public policy" pressure along the lines that is frequently theorized, but probably not proven, that the governments would hide evidence of UFO's even if they had it. I don't really believe that there is significant UFO evidence out there, but I don't doubt that governments worry about public reception of evidence if it came their way.