Viking: The First Spacecraft to Land on Mars [Techversary]

35 years ago today, Viking 1 departed to Mars. Eleven months later, it showed the sand, rocks and sky of the legendary Red Planet for the first time:

After that, it started a chain of experiments to investigate the martian soil and seek for traces of life.

The Viking I and II spacecrafts were just a small element of the Voyager Mars Program (which was unrelated to the Voyager spacecraft). The Voyager Mars Program was designed to follow Apollo. It should have culminated on the first human Mars landing within the 1980s. Imagine that: Humans on Mars within the 80s. Astronauts with shoulder pads, breathing oxygen, nitrogen and hairspray, listening to mix tapes of Duran Duran and Donna Summer.

Source

This post is tagged: land, Mars, spacecraft, Techversary, Viking