Recent evidence of ancient fossil microorganisms in meteorites believed from Mars catapulted life on Mars to the top of the news. But this was not the first evidence for life on Mars. Dr. Gil Levin's experiment on NASA's Viking Mission to Mars got strong signals indicating living microbes in the martian soil in 1976.

Beginning his career as a public health engineer measuring water quality, Gil invented a technique to detect bacteria rapidly by using radioisotopes. In 1959, Gil met T. Keith Glennan, the first Administrator of NASA, and suggested this technique might be used to look for life on the Red Planet. Gil was chosen as an Experimenter on the Viking Mission. He has been involved with Mars ever since. He was a participant in the U.S. Mars Oxidant Experiment aboard the Russian '96 Mission to Mars in an attempt to elucidate the Viking findings. Its December 1996 crash into the Pacific ended the most recent attempt to explain Viking's tantalizing findings, but it didn't end Gil's determination to settle the life issue. He will present his recommendations for further research on Mars.

Dr. Levin's research is featured extensively in the book "Mars: The Living Planet"

Dr. Levin's historic 1997 Biospherics Press Release:
http://www.biospherics.com/pressrelease/pr073097.htm

Dr. Levin's historic 1997 SPIE Proceeding's Paper Online:
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie/spiehtml.htm

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