i FROM LIVING WORLD TO A DEAD EARTH: MARS IN AMERICAN SCIENCE SINCE THE SPACE ...

156 Pages·2016·0.74 MB·English

by  Varga, Ian

FROM LIVING WORLD TO A DEAD EARTH:
MARS IN AMERICAN SCIENCE SINCE THE SPACE AGE

A thesis submitted
To the Kent State University in partial
Fulfillment of the requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts

by

Ian Varga

May 2016
© Copyright
All rights reserved
Except for previously published materials

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Thesis written by
Ian Varga
B.A., Oberlin College, 2013
M.A., Kent State University, 2016

Approved by
Matthew J. Crawford, PhD , Advisor
Kenneth J. Bindas, PhD , Chair, Department of History
James L. Blank, PhD , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………v
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………1
CHAPTERS
1. The Next Frontier: The Origins of Mars in Modern Space Science…………………….32
Background: Space, Mars, and Aliens in the 1950s…………………………………….35
The Ultimate Debate: Is There Life on Mars? ………………………………………….40
The First Images: Shifting the Debate…………………………………………………..50
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………57
2. The Beginning of the End?: Viking’s Climactic Impact on Martian Research…………60
Mars During the Mariner Years………………………………………………………………65
The Plan Viking………………………………………………………………………………72
Unsettling Discoveries………………………………………………………………………..80
Viking’s Legacy………………………………………………………………………………87
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….90

3. The Dead Earth: Mars as an Emblem of Recent American Space Exploration…………93
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Space Science in Transition: From Viking through the Space Shuttle…………………96
Back from the Dead: Mars’s Resurgence……………………………………………….99
Mars Observer: A Failed Start………………………………………………………….107
A Rock and A Rover: A New Generation of Martian Missions………………………..110
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...116
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………...120
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………...138

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Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the support of a number of other
scholars that contributed to my knowledge of the field and improved my writing. Foremost, I
greatly appreciate the coordinated and extensive help from my advisor, Dr. Matthew Crawford,
whose guidance was necessary for organizing this project and becoming familiar with the
historiography. I would also like to thank other professors at Kent State University that
contributed to the project or my writing, namely Dr. Mary Heiss, Dr. Kenneth Bindas, Dr.
Timothy Scarrnechia, Dr. David Pereplyotchik, and Dr. Shane Strate. I would also like to express
my gratitude to other students and colleagues that offered advice and suggestions throughout my
tenure at Kent State.
I also want to thank astrophysicist Dr. Daniel Stinebring of Oberlin College and
astronomer Clyde Simpson of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for educating me on
Mars and space science, as well as for inspiring me. Additionally, NASA historian Dr. Erik
Conway’s assistance in finding material was essential for initiating this project.

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Introduction
Few scientific research topics appear to draw as much publicity and discussion as Mars.
Nonetheless, despite how Americans perceive it today, Mars’s twenty-first century prominence
was far from an inevitable development during particular episodes in the 1960s and 1970s.
Scientists at particular points in the late twentieth century were apprehensive that Mars, as well
as the rest of planetary science, would fade into obscurity because of the red planet’s apparently
unpromising and uninspiring characteristics. For example, after the first National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) Martian mission in 1965, dubbed Mariner IV, scientists
uncovered a world of craters and deserts, hardly supportive of living organisms. It mirrored
portrayals of the Moon, lacking a particularly compelling trait for scientists to pursue further.
Caltech researcher Robert Leighton commented after the mission that “it would appear that the
Earth is perhaps more unique than we have thought,” expressing unease that no other world was
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as fruitful as our own. Without any signs of lif e, Mars was just another rocky world without a
lure for human investigation, and, as a result, the newly formed Martian program in NASA might
have come to a quick end. Shortly after the mission, the journal Science expressed concern that
NASA would lose its planetary missions, including to Mars, because of congressional budget
cuts. The journal explained that “most congressmen clearly have only the most superficial
interest in such missions. Moreover, a program of planetary exploration, lacking a simple, easily
understood goal comparable to the landing of a man on the moon, is too diffuse and abstract to
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readily arouse the enthusiasm of the man on the street.” Neither Congress nor the American
public would support such expensive programs to Mars without a compelling, tangible reason.

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Richard Lewis, “The Message from Mariner 4,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 21, November 1965, 39.
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Luther Carter, “Planetary Exploration: How to Get by the Budget-cutters?,” Science 158, November 24 1967,
1026.
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Fortunately for scientists invested in this research, they were able to devise a rationale that
appealed to broad scientific and social interests in Martian life.
This thesis’s main goal is to explain the development of scientific interest in Mars since
the 1960s in order to understand why Mars’s importance to science has endured for over half a
century despite these potential setbacks expeditions like Mariner IV caused. Since the 1960s,
research related to Mars has undergone a number of developments that have contributed to its
current distinction within space science. NASA initiated the Mars exploration program in 1964
with the development of the first Martian probe, Mariner IV, and it had completed eight
expeditions to Mars by 2000, each producing significant discoveries that spurred new discourse
on Mars’s past, present, and its future. Some missions, like Mariner IV, simply flew by the
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planet and sent images back home while others landed on its surface. Sometimes thes e data
affirmed what scientists expected to find on Mars, but in many cases these missions introduced
discrepancies that conflicted with how some scientists perceived the planet . Regardless of the
results, scientific investment in Mars has never entirely l ost its momentum , and the planet has
recently grown into the most prioritized objective for NASA.
Before delving into Mars’s history within scientific thought and its implications for the
history of science, it is important to establish Mars’s basic scientific characteristics for context.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System and one of the closest planets to the
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Earth. Although it takes significantly longer for Mars to revolve ar ound the Sun than Earth, its

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See NASA’s website for a list of all Martian missions, http://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/missions/.
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The exact distance between the Earth and Mars vari es depending on its position relative to the Earth. At
opposition, which is Mars’s closest approach to Earth, the planet is between 0.7 and 0.3 Astronomical Units (AU)
from Earth, so on average half the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Mars was 93 million km from Earth
during the last opposition in April 2014. See this table for more data,
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/MARS/APPENDS.HTM.
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days are 24 hours and 40 minutes long, similar to the Earth. The planet, around two - thirds the
size of Earth, is known for its strikingly red surface caused by oxidized iron, i.e. rust, found
within its soil. Its atmosphere is thin, containing mostly carbon dioxide, and its surf ace
temperature is, on average, - 81 degrees Fahrenheit. It has two moons which are small asteroids
captured in Mars’s gravity. Its surface is covered in large valleys, mountains, and craters with the
exception of its north and south poles which contain water ice that recedes and expands as
seasons on Mars change. Some of its valleys suggest that water once flowed through them.
Overall, Mars has notable physical differences to the Earth, namely its atmosphere and lack of
magnetic field, which have mired speculation about Mars’s habitability, but signs of water in its
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geography and geology suggest it was once more livable than now. Although Mars and the
Earth share similarities in their histories, today they have notable differen ces.
To understand how Mars h as become a fixture in space science, t his thesis wi ll examine
the ways scientists have researched Mars from the 1950s through the year 2000 and how
perceptions of Mars among scientists have developed overtime based on observations from space
probes . As me ntioned above, Mars is a useful topic within space science because the scientific
community has maintained interest in the planet for decades. This consistency is exceptional
when compared to other major space science projects occurring from the 1950s to 2 000 . For
example, the famous Apollo Moon landings sparked considerable attention from both scientists
and the public for a few years from the late 1960s into the 1970s, but the spark fizzled for a
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variety of reasons, such as a lack of funding and interest among scientists and the public . Other

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Martian days are sometimes called sols.
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NASA has a comprehensive list of facts related to Mars on its website, http://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/facts/.
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Matthew Tribbe’s book, No Requiem for the Space Age: The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture where
the author explains that Americans lost interest in lunar missions after the initial Apollo 11 landing. They believed
the missions were wasteful in a time of war in Vietnam and demands for social and environmental reform.
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planets comparable to Mars, such as Venus, have not received the same prioritization from
NASA. The United States sent only half as many probes to Venus compared to Mars by 2000
despite the similar distances both planets have to Earth, and none were as ambitious as the
Martian landers such as Viking. The outer planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, were relatively
unknown objects until the 1980s, yet Mars was the destination of six missions from NASA by
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that point. Mars was exceptional compared to other planetary bodies.
Of course, scientific interest in Mars did not begin in the mid - twentieth century. Likely
the most significant catalyst for twentieth - century speculation was Percival Lowell’s claim in the
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1890s that various canals, possibly artificially created, exist on the planet’s surface. This
assertion spurred the prevailing impression that Mars is habitable, and, perhaps, there exist
organisms that currently thrive on its surface. Yet, it was during the latter half of the twentieth
century that direct exploration of Mars began and interest among scientists escalated to new
levels. Until the 1960s, scientists had to rely on Earth-based instruments to study Mars,
instruments that were limited because of the vast distance between the Earth and Mars. New
scientific institutions that received direct funding from the government such as NASA created an
opportunity for scientists to devise major, large-scale projects that could study Mars directly.
These projects would lead to major changes in the way scientists perceived Mars.
Scientific interest in Mars was not a natural, self-evident process, not simply a case of
human curiosity or a desire to explore. This thesis argues that Mars’s consistency in space
science is the result of scientists incorporating Mars within broader scientific and social contexts,

Matthew D Tribbe, No Requiem for the Space Age: The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014).
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NASA has conducted six missions to Venus compared to 18 for Mars. NASA has an online listing of missions to
Venus, while also including some Soviet missions, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/venuspage.html
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See Crowe, Michael J. The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986, 502-526 for further discussion of Percival Lowell.
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a process encouraged by scientists believing in and appealing to the significance of Mars’s
connection to extraterrestrial life. The phrase social incorporation, used throughout this work,
refers to the efforts of scientists to embed particular scientific topic or objects such as Mars to
within broader concepts or principles in society and culture. In this case, extraterrestrial life and
the discovery of habitable worlds, notions already established within American society, acted as
the primary means of connecting Martian research with American culture. A contingent of
exobiologists, a set of scientists that believed life existed on Mars, initiated Martian exploration
in the 1960s and established a scientific association between Mars and extraterrestrial life. This
establishment occurred during a period of intense fascination with alien life in American society
and popular culture and created a foundation for Martin research rooted within American social
principles. Subsequently, scientists argued that the search for life on Mars was crucial for
understanding evolution, developments in planetary environments, and even human space
exploration. This rationale was often vague and without a direct, tangible benefit like most other
Big Science projects offered, yet it drew much media attention and helped validate the beliefs
these scientists held concerning extraterrestrial life and legitimized the costs involved in these
missions. Interested scientists understood that they needed to substantiate Martian research with
direct connections to society or lose public support. Combined with their belief in Martian life,
their characterizations of Mars successfully enamored both scientists and the public, allowing
Mars to garner a central role in space science.
As mentioned above, Mars’s consistent prominence was not predestined, as interest in it
could have possibly faded because of particularly uninspiring results such as with Mariner IV.
The fact that some scientists feared for the demise of the Martian program because of a dozen or
so images from one probe shows that interest in Mars relied on specific characteristics, namely
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