Missing Bugs: Dead Programmers Tell No Tales

SpaceScience.com; July 20, 2001; NASA Science News: "Happy Anniversary, Viking Lander" 

Reuters; July 27, 2001; Newswire: "NASA Data Point to Mars 'Bugs,' Scientist Says" 

University of Southern California; July 27, 2001; Press Release: "USC neuroscientist finds signature of life on Mars in decades-old data"

Viking 1. (Why was the blue cut and red pumped to make the field of the flag purple?) NASA/JPL

Twenty-five years ago this past July 20th, the first exploratory probe to land on Mars made a soft landing on Chryse Planitia. Named Viking 1, it landed on the seventh anniversary of the first manned Moon landing, the auspicious date was in line with high hopes for new discoveries. The date was also fitting as it was the first landing on an alien world by an American space vehicle since the Apollo program. It was later joined on Mars by its sister lander in September, thousands of km away on the Utopia Planitia area of the Planet

The public hoopla around the time of the landing concerned the Viking life-science experiments, to determine if there were any Martian microbes in the soil. Soon after landing, each probe dutifully dug a "trench" in the Martian soil and deposited samples into experimental chambers. Radioactive carbohydrate nutrient solution was mixed with the soil samples in one experiment. If living microbes were present, their biological activity would result in the release of radioactive carbon gas. The nine-week experiment did result in the release of gas, but -- to the public's disappointment -- the data was interpreted as showing signs of non-living chemical activity. It was chalked up to some type of superoxide or peroxide in the soil.

The Chryse Planitia landing site was chosen because it was a safe landing site and not as the best place to look for life. Both Viking sites are harsh desert environments, away from the pole caps where liquid water may nurture any life on Mars. So perhaps it's not surprising that the Landers didn't discover life at their respective sites.

Viking 1 'trench'. NASA/JPL

Some have questioned the validity of the soil samples as not being representative of Mars. For instance, how deep did the Viking 1 Lander dig into the Martian soil for life? What NASA calls the "trench," dug by Viking 1 into the sandy surface, turns out to be a diminutive 3" x 6" rectangle only 2-inches deep -- about as deep as an impression made by a jogger running on a sandy beach. Since Mars lacks a global magnetic field and thick atmosphere its surface is bombarded by life-killing UV light and ionizing particles. Perhaps Viking did not dig far down enough to recover viable microbes.

Recently, the speculation on the failed, Viking life-signs experiments has been turned around. In a new twist, University of Southern California neurobiologist Dr. Joseph Miller argues that important life-proving data from the Lander experiments was overlooked and should be reexamined. He's doing that now but is being hampered by the fact that the data was not only overlooked, but also lost!

In 1999 Dr. Miller asked NASA for the original data on the Viking experiments and was chagrined to find the data was missing. After several months NASA finally turned up the data tapes, but found they were "in a format so old that the programmers who knew it had died,'' according to Miller. Luckily NASA found printed records of the data for Miller to work on. Even though he's only a third the way through the data-pile, enough information has been crunched for Miller to announce some findings.

Miller's reexamination of the available data shows that life-seeking, radioactive carbon emissions followed a "circadian rhythm" -- a sign of a biological "clock" tuned to the length of the Martian day. This is exactly the cycle that would be found in a living colony of microbes. Activity increased during the day and decreased at night. "I think, basically, that it's bugs," says Miller. Also, the amount of radioactive gas released continued to increase over time, until the sample was heated to 160° C (320º F) and the gas generation dropped. According to Miller, the drop in gas production was caused by the heat "killing all the bugs".

Could temperature variations in the Martian day/night cycle be responsible for the circadian mimicking effect? It turns out the test chamber inside Viking was heavily insulated and fluctuated by only 2º C over the course of the experiments. Temperature driven circadian rhythms due to such small changes have been repeatedly observed on Earth. "There is no reason for a purely chemical reaction to be so strongly synchronized to such a small temperature fluctuation," says Dr. Miller. Research in the years after the Viking landings have shown that superoxides -- the suspected non-living reaction agents -- would quickly be destroyed in the type of experiment run by the Viking Landers.

Viking 2 displays a 330-degrees panorama.   NASA/JPL

Dr. Miller has an advantage over the original NASA researchers: the science of circadian rhythms has greatly advanced in the intervening 20-years. "I think back in 1976, the Viking researchers had an excellent reason to believe they'd discovered life; I'd say it was a good 75 percent certain. Now, with this discovery, I'd say it's over 90 percent. And I think there are a lot of biologists who would agree with me."

 Pluto Re-Re-Visited?

SpaceflightNow.com; July 24, 2001; Breaking News: "U.S. Senate finds money for Pluto space probe" 

SpaceDaily.com; July 25, 2001; NASA Budget: "A Culture Of Permissiveness"

The Pluto Kuiper Express (PKE) probe moved another step closer to realty when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $25-million for the mission, as part of the NASA's fiscal year 2002 budget. The money came at the expense a propulsion initiative for future Pluto probes. The propulsion research was meant to find a quicker and cheaper way to Pluto so that a revamped PKE-type mission could be launched for Pluto rendezvous by 2020. The total cost of that research project would have amounted to $100-million. Planetary scientists considered this research something of a sham. The American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences released a statement that said: "The idea that a new propulsion system might be invented and implemented in the short term which would enable a mission to Pluto for a lower cost than using current effective technology has no basis in the history of space exploration."

But the re-directed money is only a small part of the estimated $500-million that is needed to get the probe to Pluto. Perhaps not enough to maintain development work for a full year. The Senate Committee's report on the budge resolution covered that problem when it said that "the Committee expects to address the issue of full funding for PKE" at a joint House and Senate budget conference committee meeting.

In more encouraging news, the Committee also requested that NASA initiate an "Outer Planets Program", with a PKE the first of a series of missions. Alan Stern, a principal investigator of one Pluto mission concepts feels hopeful for full funding. "The Senate's support seems very strong."

With Pluto moving away from the Sun, the planet's thin atmosphere will condense into ices in the coming decades. This will make it hard for the envisioned Pluto orbiter to analyze the gas. Also, an opportunity to use a planetary alignment of Jupiter for a gravitational boost to Pluto will be lost if the mission is not launched soon.

See "Posse to Pluto?" in the 06.16.01 NewsNotes for background on the political twists and turns that have caused this project to be cancelled twice in the past year.

Space Bugs on Earth

BBC.co.uk; July 31, 2001; News: "Scepticism greets 'space bugs' claim"

Tentative "space bug" fluoresces under the microscope.

This is an update to a story published in the NewsNotes (12.15.00, "They're Here") concerning alleged alien microbes discovered high in the Earth's atmosphere by a balloon probe. Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University, UK had samples analyzed from a microbe-hunting, 41-km high balloon experiment. He claims the balloon's filter-traps captured terrestrial-looking microbes that exist at a density of 100 bacteria per liter of air. But Wickramasinghe claims these microbes are not of this Earth -- he claims that the density of microbes at that altitude is too high for an Earth-based origin. Besides, the microbiology "team haven't yet been able to culture them and that gives added confidence that the microbes are something alien. Because, if they were ordinary run-of-the-mill bacterial contaminants, they would be very easy to culture."

So where do these bacteria come from? According to Wickramasinghe, a proponent of the Panspermia Theory of life-origin, comets and space dust carry a hundreds of pounds of "space bugs" to Earth every day.

Astrobiologists are very skeptical of his claims. Many point to possible contaminating and the lack of a peer reviewed, published paper on Wickramasinghe's experiment. "I would like to be positive but the burning question for me is: how do we know there is no contamination? Let's see the work published. Let's see it peer reviewed," says Professor John Zarnecki, from the Open University, and a member of the UK Astrobiology Forum and Network.

How to Bring Back Bugs

To Earth! NASA/KSC

Jet Propulsion Laboratory; July 26, 2001; Press Release: "Contracts Awarded for Mars Ascent Vehicle Concept Studies"

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded three $300,000 contracts for studies relating to the Ascent Vehicle for the Mars Sample Return mission. This rocket is to carry rover-retrieved samples from Mars to Earth for study. The three companies awarded study contracts are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and TRW.

Done over a six-month period, the work will provide a roadmap of concepts and technologies required for the return rocket. This information will be used to create the final design specifications for the Mars Ascent Vehicle.

Launch of an actual mission will not be until at least the year 2011.