Life was scientifically detected on Mars more than 40 years ago.

In the Viking lander experiments life was detected but a conservative and erroneous interpretation of the upper level authorities of NASA  decided that it was not. This interview to Gilbert V. Levin describes this strange (and negative) approach to research that was utilized by the NASA mission management team.

One of the Principal Investigators for the NASA Viking biology team was Dr. Gilbert V. Levin who invented and built the Viking Labeled Release Experiment. His experiment tested the soil of Mars nine times at two different landing sites under different temperature regimes and environmental conditions. All his data point to microbes metabolizing a nutrient solution and giving off an indicative radioactive CO2 gas. In 1997, Levin simultaneously reported in my book MARS: THE LIVING PLANET and in an Astrobiology Proceedings paper for the SPIE, that his experiment definitely detected living organisms on the surface of Mars. He has been highly criticized by many of his peers, but certainly not all. With the recent smoking gun evidence of meandering river channels on Mars formed by liquid water, the odds that Mars once had life and still has life today have gone up significantly.

In the following conversation I talk with Dr. Levin about his early work as a Sanitary Engineer and how it got him involved with NASA and the search for life on Mars.

1) You actually started your career looking for microbes in municipal water systems correct?

My professional career started as a 'sanitary engineer.' During my senior year in high school I met a sanitary engineer who was a commissioned officer in the U.S. public health service. He told me of the many facets to this profession and the multiple scientific and engineering disciplines involved in protecting the public health. Career possibilities included water supply, wastewater, drainage, air pollution, foods, and all aspects of the environmental protection, and the development of relevant processes and products. I applied to the Johns Hopkins University to enroll in its sanitary engineering program and was accepted. The first step was to obtain a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, and then take a master's degree in sanitary engineering and public health. Upon completion of both degrees, I went to work for the Maryland state health department as a junior sanitary engineer. My assigned responsibilities dealt with municipal water supplies, waste water disposal, industrial waste disposal, shellfish sanitation, and swimming pools. Water quality analysis, especially microbial, was involved in all these activities. Early on I became especially interested in the microbiology concerned projects I was assigned.

2) You worked with a microbial detection technique called radiorespirometry in the late 1950's that was extremely sensitive for the detection microbes in water and in blood. Are you the inventor of this method and how does it work?

I am the inventor. It is a very simple test, patterned after the long-used, classic method for detecting bacteria. That method placed a sample of the material suspected of bacterial contamination into a test tube containing a liquid broth designed to culture the bacteria. If bacteria were present, they would eat the nutrient and reproduce. At the same time they were exhaling gas as part of their metabolism of the food. Eventually enough gas would be expired to create small, visible bubbles. The bubbles were proof that bacteria were present. Some tests were designed to detect any bacteria. Others were designed to detect specific species. The types of nutrient used determined which bacteria would respond. Varied depending on the specific test, the length of time required to detect the bacteria ranges from one to several days, even up to a week. My invention was simply to add tiny amounts of radioactive nutrient into the nutrient(s) used in the test. Chemically there was no difference between the radioactive molecules and the nonradioactive ones. The bacteria could not tell the difference between them and metabolized them both. However, when radioactive molecules were metabolized the gas produced was radioactive. Methods to detect radioactivity are so sensitive that the gas can be detected within minutes, providing answers almost immediately compared to the length of time required by the classic method. In the standard test, bacteria have to reproduce to about a million per milliliter of culture broth to produce visible bubbles. The radioactive method is so sensitive that as few as ten bacterial cells in the sample can be detected in about half an hour, before any growth occurs. Growth is not needed. I developed the method to detect total bacteria and to detect coliform organisms (of sewage origin)for use in detecting contamination of drinking water and swimming water. This was adopted by several states as an emergency water supply public method. I then developed the method and associated instrumentation to be able to detect and identify specific pathogenic microorganisms of public health interest. The method is now used in hospitals and clinics worldwide to detect human blood infection very quickly.

3) Didn't you have a problem selling the invention initially?

My carbon-labeled microbial respirometry technique worked very well, both to detect and to identify microorganisms. However, potential user agencies feared the public relations aspect of using radioactive material. Of course, hospitals were using increasing amounts of isotopes and X-rays, but even they resisted (until sometime later) expanding that use into microbiological testing. This was frustrating.

4) How did you get involved with NASA?

In 1958, I accompanied my wife, then a reporter for Newsweek magazine, to a Christmas party at the home of the Washington bureau chief, Ernest Lindley. There I met the first Nasa administrator, Kieth Glennan and we had a nice talk about space research. I had long been interested in the possibility of life beyond the earth. When I was 9 years old, my cousin, pointing out Mars to me, told me about an astronomy course she was taking at college where the possibility of life on mars and elsewhere was discussed. An idea dawned on me at the party. Putting down my martini, I asked, only half-jokingly, whether Nasa might ever look for life on Mars. Glennan surprised me by saying he was planning to do so, and that he had just hired an M.D., Clark Randt, to head up a new Nasa biology program. Glennan suggested I go see Randt and tell him about my test. I made an appointment very soon after. Randt was most receptive and told me to submit my idea as a proposal for possible funding for me to do the research. This was very exciting, and I promptly went to work crafting a proposal explaining what needed to be done to develop my microbial radiospirometry experiment and an instrument to perform it on Mars. He said Nasa intended to fund several such experiments and to choose a number of them for a Mars lander.

5) When did NASA officially fund you for this?

In 1959, Nasa funded my proposal to develop my radiosrespirometry experiment to go to Mars. I named it 'Gulliver,' because it was to seek Lilliputian life forms on a far away land, and I hired a small team to help me in the laboratory. The development went exceedingly well. Within the first year we had developed a suitable nutrient for detection of a broad array of microorganisms, selected and incorporated the radioactive carbon label, and demonstrated the sensitivity and quickness of the technique. Later, Nasa changed the name to 'Labeled Release' to indicate the seriousness of its purpose. Before the end of the year we had a working instrument that a subcontractor manufactured to meet our concepts. We tested the instrument on a nearby playground and it promptly detected microorganisms.

6) Can you describe how the Gulliver worked?

The instrument shot out 2 greasy strings that fell onto the ground with their free ends landing about 100 feet from the instrument. The strings were then reeled in, collecting tiny particles of soil that adhered. A glass vial of the nutrient was broken over each reel. The soil organisms promptly attacked the nutrients and produced radioactive gas. Geiger counters measured the radioactivity of the gas as it rose above the reel, providing evidence that a reaction had taken place. When one reel showed a positive response, the other was promptly doused with a poison to kill any microorganisms on it in order to serve as a control. The monitoring for radioactive gas arising from each reel continued. In our very first field test, the poisoned reel produced very little gas, while the test reel produced thousands of counts per minute in about half an hour. The difference between them proved that the first reel was responding to living organisms.

During the ensuing years, Nasa funded about 10 mars life detection experiments, including two additional ones of mine: the 'Dark Release' experiment - which detected photosynthetic microorganisms by demonstrating their uptake of radioactive carbon dioxide in the light, and their release of the gas in the dark; and 'Diogenes,' based on the enzymes in the firefly lantern that light up in the presence of adenosine triphosphate, a chemical that is the immediate energy provider in all known metabolism. All the experimenters went full tilt in developing their experiments and enabling robotic instruments in the hope of making it aboard a Mars lander whenever it might be designated.

Reproduced and adapted from Space Daily

Author: Barry E. DiGregorio
Ref.  http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-03l.html