T-Minus Overview- Preserving Space History.

Summary

T-Minus Space Daily: Episode Overview – Preserving Space History
Release Date: November 28, 2024
Host: Maria Varmazas

In this enlightening episode of T-Minus Space Daily, host Maria Varmazas delves into the often-overlooked aspects of space exploration history. The episode features in-depth conversations with two dedicated individuals striving to preserve unique facets of space heritage: Dave Williams from NASA's Space Science Data Coordinated Archive and Rachel Tillman, founder of the Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project. Their stories highlight the meticulous efforts required to maintain and share the rich, albeit lesser-known, narratives of space missions.

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Preserving Apollo Moon Trees with Dave Williams

Dave Williams, responsible for managing NASA’s Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, shares a captivating story about the Apollo moon trees, an initiative linked to the Apollo 14 mission.

Historical Context and Discovery
Apollo 14, launched in 1971, was NASA's third successful mission to land on the moon, following the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission ([02:41]). Unlike other Apollo missions, Apollo 14 featured Stuart Roosa, the command module pilot, who had a unique background with the U.S. Forest Service. Roosa ingeniously decided to carry tree seeds into space, aiming to bring them back for a symbolic gesture linking space exploration with Earth’s natural environment.

The Moon Trees Initiative
Stuart Roosa took approximately 500 tree seeds aboard his personal kit during Apollo 14. After the mission, these seeds were germinated and distributed across the United States in 1976 to commemorate the bicentennial, resulting in the planting of "moon trees" in various states ([02:41]).

Challenges in Tracking Moon Trees
Despite the noble intentions, the project encountered significant logistical issues. Williams explains, “There was no real systematic record keeping.” ([03:44]). The collaboration between NASA and the Forest Service involved multiple entities, leading to a loss of detailed records and making it difficult to trace where each tree was planted. This lack of documentation resulted in many of the moon trees becoming "status unknown" over the years.

Rediscovering the Moon Trees
Williams recounts how he stumbled upon the moon trees almost two decades later when a third-grade teacher in Indiana, Joan Goble, inquired about a moon tree planted at a Girl Scout camp ([06:43]). This prompted Williams to investigate further, uncovering more about the moon trees through archival research and internet resources. His efforts led to the creation of a dedicated webpage, inviting the public to contribute information about any existing moon trees, which significantly broadened the known scope from an initial six trees to over a hundred, though many remain unverified ([08:19]).

Technical and Logistical Hurdles
Williams details the unexpected complications during the moon trees' initial germination process. The seeds were inadvertently exposed to a vacuum within a decontamination chamber, causing many to fail. Only about half of the seeds survived, and the Forest Service later took over the distribution, leading to scattered and often undocumented plantings ([11:29]).

Current Efforts and Ongoing Mystery
Despite the challenges, Williams continues to trace the legacy of the moon trees, hoping to uncover their locations and preserve their history. He shares anecdotes about recent discoveries and the continuous search for missing trees, emphasizing the ongoing nature of this preservation effort ([15:46]).

Notable Quotes:

• “No one expected there’d be a difference. And that's why it really wasn't a science experiment.” – Dave Williams ([05:01])
• “The trail just goes cold.” – Dave Williams ([16:37])

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Preserving Viking Mars Missions with Rachel Tillman

Rachel Tillman offers a comprehensive overview of the Viking Mars Missions, emphasizing her personal connection and professional dedication to preserving this pivotal chapter in space exploration.

Background and Mission Overview
The Viking missions, launched in 1975, comprised two orbiters and two landers that successfully reached Mars in 1976 ([17:31]). Tillman highlights the multinational collaboration involved, noting, “Many NASA missions are about 10 to 20, maybe 30% NASA.” ([18:40]). The mission's primary goals were to explore Mars's atmosphere, surface, and potential for biological organics using advanced scientific instruments.

Scientific and Engineering Achievements
The Viking missions were landmark achievements in both science and engineering. Key accomplishments include:

• Biological and Chemical Analysis: The missions focused on detecting biological organics and understanding Mars's elemental composition through advanced instruments like the X-ray fluorescent system and gas chromatograph mass spectrometers (GCMS) ([21:14]).

• Atmospheric and Seismic Studies: Detailed measurements of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and seismic activity were conducted using sensitive seismometers on both landers ([21:14]).

• Communication Innovations: Viking pioneered robust communication systems between Mars and Earth, experimenting with both direct and orbiter-mediated transmissions ([21:14]).

• Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Technology: The missions introduced groundbreaking EDL techniques, including the disk gap band parachute and ablative aerobraking systems, setting standards for future Mars landings. Additionally, the Vikings were among the first to implement throttleable autonomous AI landing systems ([23:27]).

Tillman emphasizes the lasting impact of Viking's engineering feats, stating, “The Vikings actually created the disk gap band parachute, which is the only parachute that successfully could withstand the forces of descent after the pyrotechnic separation from the aeroshell.” ([24:58]). These innovations have influenced subsequent missions, underscoring Viking's legacy in space engineering.

Rachel's Preservation Efforts
Driven by her father's involvement in the Viking missions, Tillman founded the Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project. Her mission revolves around collecting and preserving oral histories and artifacts from over 300 individuals who contributed to the missions. She underscores the importance of preserving personal narratives to maintain a comprehensive historical record, regardless of the individual's level of recognition within the mission ([27:45]).

Outreach and Collaboration
Tillman's project not only archives historical data but also engages in educational outreach, ensuring that future generations understand the complexities and collaborative nature of space missions. Her efforts include conducting extensive interviews and compiling a diverse array of personal stories, thereby enriching the collective memory of Viking's contributions to Mars exploration ([27:45]).

Notable Quotes:

• “We were searching for biological organics, but we were also trying to understand the elemental characteristics of the planet.” – Rachel Tillman ([21:14])
• “We were looking for biological organics, but we were also trying to understand the elemental characteristics of the planet.” – Rachel Tillman ([21:14])
• “The richest asset is the people that worked on Viking, the individuals that worked on Viking.” – Rachel Tillman ([27:45])

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Conclusion

This episode of T-Minus Space Daily underscores the vital importance of preserving the nuanced and often underappreciated stories within space exploration. Through the dedicated work of individuals like Dave Williams and Rachel Tillman, the legacies of initiatives such as the Apollo moon trees and the Viking Mars Missions are meticulously archived and disseminated. Their efforts ensure that future generations can access and learn from these rich historical narratives, fostering a deeper appreciation for the complexities and collaborative spirit that drive humanity’s ventures into space.

Key Takeaways:

• Apollo Moon Trees: A symbolic gesture linking space exploration with Earth's natural environment, now a subject of ongoing research to trace their locations and heritage.

• Viking Mars Missions: A pioneering series of missions that not only advanced scientific understanding of Mars but also set enduring engineering standards for future space endeavors.

By spotlighting these preservation projects, the podcast emphasizes the interconnectedness of history, science, and personal dedication in shaping our collective space heritage.

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For more insights into the space industry, join Maria Varmazas every weekday on T-Minus Space Daily, available on all major podcast platforms. Visit space.n2k.com for additional information and resources.

Transcript

[Maria Varmazas]

You're listening to the N2K space network.

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[Maria Varmazas]

Hi, I'm Maria Varmazas, host of the T Minus Space Daily podcast and you're listening to T Minus Overview. In this program, we'll feature some of the conversations from our daily podcast with the people who are forging the path in the new space era. From industry leaders, technology experts and pioneers, to educators, policymakers, researchers and more. In this episode, we're going to meet two people who are working to preserve lesser known aspects of space history. Many scientific institutions and museums work hard to share stories from the space race and beyond. And space experts and enthusiasts have taken up the mantle to educate the public about missions that are long forgotten or misunderstood. But no matter who serves as a historical guide, it does take a step steadfast dedication to the mission and the people who made it happen. Dave Williams is in charge of the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. But when an email about the moon trees ended up in his mailbox, he decided to do some digging. Figuratively, of course. What happened to the Apollo moon trees? Here's his story.

[Dave Williams]

So back in 1971, Apollo 14 flew to the moon. It was the third mission that made it to the moon. It was right after Apollo 13, which of course was the mission that failed. And luckily everyone made it back. So all eyes were kind of on Apollo 14. But one of the astronauts, the command module pilot, who was the one who did not go down to the moon, Stuart Roosa, had worked for the Forest Service previously to joining NASA. And as part of that, he decided along with some of his colleagues at the Forest Service, that he was going to bring tree seeds up with him to orbit the moon. And so he put them in his personal kit. He took about 500 tree seeds that were selected by the Forest Service, took them up inside his own his personal kit, brought them around the moon, brought them back to Earth, gave them back to the Forest Service. They germinated the trees and then they sent them all over the country in 1976 for the bicentennial. And they planted them just all over the country. And then it sort of got kind.

[Maria Varmazas]

Of forgotten, which is an interesting mystery to be solving.

[Dave Williams]

It's very interesting. You Know, it's been fascinating all these years. I assumed that they took the seeds up. They checked careful records of where they were planted and everything like that. And it didn't work that way. It didn't work that way for a few reasons. One, it was really a public relations thing. It wasn't really a science experiment. It was definitely a public relations kind of thing. Two, it was between. Basically, there were three different entities involved. And it got very confusing. So for, obviously, NASA and then the Forest Service. But then the Forest Service handed these trees out to the seedlings once they'd grown them to various state governments. So in other words, there was no real connection. And so there was no real systematic record keeping. In other words, they sort of went to the state. Maybe the Forest Service knew that it sent, you know, three trees to Montana. But what happened after that, if the state didn't keep track of them, you know, the records are gone. And that's what happened for most of them. So somewhere in the communications records just sort of got lost or the trail got lost.

[Maria Varmazas]

Okay, so that does fill in some pieces for me, because I thought it was a science mission. I was thinking, was there thoughts about, like, would the germination be different if, you know, now that the seeds have been to space, or would the trees look different? Do they look different now that they're mature? I mean, what do we know about them?

[Dave Williams]

But they did try to grow. They saved some seeds behind to try to grow control trees to see if there was any difference. No one expected there'd be a difference. And that's why it really wasn't a science experiment. Because it would have been amazing if these tree seeds had gone into space for a week, basically, and come back and been changed. And there were, you know, with the astronaut the whole time. I mean, so what would that have said? If there was that much effect from radiation, zero gravity or something on these little seeds. And there's an astronaut sitting in the exact same environment.

[Maria Varmazas]

So, yeah, so they kind of.

[Dave Williams]

They kind of knew, right? They kind of knew that space wasn't going to, you know, turn, make an astronaut start glowing or grow tentacles. And so they didn't expect anything to happen to the trees. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazas]

That is very encouraging. I mean, again, it would make one wonder about our humans in space, if that would be the difference. But it is also fascinating to hear that it was a bit of a you've got this. No, you've got this. No, you've got. You figure it out kind of a situation with the trees and that. Yeah. People were just kind of like, it's nice, but we're not going to track it. That's kind of funny. I never would have expected that.

[Dave Williams]

I know, I know. Well, okay, so there's, there's the other part of that, too is, you know, the Apollo program actually ended pretty abruptly. I mean, 14, there was 15, 16, 17. And then they were like, okay, we can't afford it anymore. They had plans for more Apollo missions. So, you know, once it ended, I mean, it's kind of like everyone left the party and went their own ways and, you know, they lost track of a lot of stuff. In fact, part of my job is still, is I'm still looking for some, you know, bits and pieces of Apollo data that either documentation or, you know, various things that weren't quite saved as well as they should have been. So there is that too. Anyway, they did lose track. Yeah.

[Maria Varmazas]

So how did you find out about the moon trees in general? Because I think I've heard some versions of the story, I'm not sure if it's correct, but involves a Girl Scout. Do I have this? You tell me about this. My kid's a Girl Scout. So I'm just like, I'm dying to know.

[Dave Williams]

Oh, yeah, no, no, this is, this is one of the thing. If you told me when I started working at NASA that I'd be, you know this story, I'd be like, what? No, this is, that's not right. Anyway, no. So in 1996, I got an email. Now I told you I'm archiving and restoring data from the old missions. And so my, my name was on a lot of pages for the Apollo mission. So I got an email in 1996 from this 3rd grade teacher in Kendallton, Indiana, named Joan Goble. And she said their class is doing this project on sort of local historic trees. And there was a Girl Scout in the class who said there's a tree at their Girl Scout camp and it has a sign on it and it says it's a moon tree. And she Jones said, I don't know anything else about this except someone said it has something to do with the Apollo mission. So I'm like, okay, I never heard of moon trees. But, you know, okay, let me, let me see what I can find out. I asked around. I mean, in 1996, I'm at Goddard Space Flight Center. There's a, there's an awful lot of folks around there, especially at that time, who were, you know, it's kind of the old timers who actually knew about the Apollo were involved in the Apollo program. So I started asking around. I said, oh, we're at these moon trees on Apollo. And I got the best looks. They're like, yeah, yeah, sure, Dave.

[Maria Varmazas]

Thanks.

[Dave Williams]

You know, I don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of these movies. I couldn't find anything. No one. No one knew anything about them. I got on online, on the web now in 1996.

[Maria Varmazas]

Of course, the web was a very rudimentary web. Yes, I remember it well.

[Dave Williams]

Yes, Yep, you could find some things. And I found a little bit about it. And then I also contacted the NASA history office, and they sent me a few. They had a little file there with a couple news clippings on the moon tree. So I had enough to kind of piece it together, and I figured, you know, And I found out, okay, so it was Stuart Russa. It was on Apollo 14. He brought these tree seats. They brought them back. And I got enough of the story. I could tell I could answer Joan as much as I could. And then it's like, okay, I've done that. I've answered that email. And I thought, but this is such a cool story, and no one knows about it. I mean, like I said, people I talked to, even who were around at Apollo didn't know about this. So I'm like, well, I just. I hate this to get lost. I have these web pages about the Apollo missions. I said, I'm gonna stuff it in there. It doesn't belong to the science archiving, but, you know, we had some. We have some latitude to do, you know, public outreach, that sort of thing. So. So I made up some pages. I made up some pages about the moon trees. And what little I knew. I should say pages, probably one page. I fit everything I knew on one page. And I had about six trees. I think at that point that from the various news clippings and what I found online. So I put those. The list of these six trees on there, and I put a note at the bottom. I said, hey, if you know about a moon tree, here's my email. Please, please let me know about it. And I started getting emails. Oh, we've got a tree in our local park. It has this plaque. I never knew what this was. It says, it's a moon tree. And it was planted in the bicentennial in 1976. And I started getting all these messages. People would send me pictures. People would, you know, some people sent stories about they remembered the moon tree being planted or, you know, things like that, newspaper clippings. So I started, it started coming together and then I started hearing from some people, stumbled across it from the Forest Service. And I started from people who actually worked on it and I got from them and that I actually heard now Stuart Ruse had passed away in 1994, so just before this. But I actually started getting emails from his family. Oh, wow. And then I could. So that. Yeah, that was amazing. I remember the first one I got from his son Jack and he said, oh, this is. I just took my daughters to see the moon tree. And this is, he said, this is very special to me. You see, I'm Stuart Roos son. I was like, oh my gosh.

[Rachel Tillman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maria Varmazas]

A connection to his father. Oh, that's really.

[Dave Williams]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Maria Varmazas]

So.

[Dave Williams]

Right. So. So anyway, I got, I got a lot of the background from, you know, the Forest Service people, Stan Krugman and these guys and I got stuff from, from Stuart Roos family and the story really started coming together. And yeah, now I've, you know, it's a hundred and something trees there that people have sent me information and pictures about. And yeah, it's been so. It's been kind of amazing. It just kind of blew up.

[Maria Varmazas]

Quick back of the napkin math. A lot of them are still status unknown. Like we. So if there was 500 seeds, assuming all 500 germinated only. Or did I, did I do that math right? Or I may be a misunderstanding. So how.

[Dave Williams]

Well, there's, there's more of the story. Oh, when they, when they first came back, the 500 seeds, when they first came back, NASA tried to plant. Well, they planted about half of them. Well, what happened was actually even before that, when they came back, they tried to decontaminate them. They decontaminated everything that came off Apollo. Now Apollo 14 was actually the last one they did that for. And then they said, you know what, there's nothing on the moon we have to worry about. But the seeds got thrown into a decontamination chamber. And part of it was they, they put them in under a vacuum. Well, the seeds were in these little plastic bags and the, and for some reason they had opened up the canister before they put it in there. So the bags all burst. So the seeds flew all over the chamber.

[Maria Varmazas]

Oh my God.

[Dave Williams]

Right. And these were. Yes, and these were explosively exposed to a vacuum. So no one knew what was going to happen. I mean, no one. Who wouldn't do that. You know, no one's done experiments with tree seeds that I know of to just, you know, explosively expose them to a Vacuum. I mean, but no one knew.

[Rachel Tillman]

Corn.

[Dave Williams]

A bunch of five.

[Maria Varmazas]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

[Dave Williams]

So. So don't know if they survived, but Stan Krugman went and said, just sweep them up and give them to me. Now, these seeds, 500 in this little. They're teeny, teeny things. He went through all of them and sorted them. He sorted out the redwoods. He sorted out the Douglas fir seeds, and then they germinated. They tried to germinate a whole bunch of them to make sure they were okay. Well, they did grow, but unfortunately at NASA, they really didn't have the facilities to keep them alive. So after about a year, they died. So about half. Roughly half. I mean, I don't know how many. No one. I've been able to find that. But a lot of them died. And they said. And the Forest Service. And NASA said, hey, you know, NASA said, we can't do this, and the Forest Service is given to us. So they sent the rest of the seats to the Forest Service, and then they. The Forest Service germinated and grew them. So there's some good records. Like, for example, for the redwoods, there's really good records. And I haven't been able to find records for some of the other ones, so I don't know exactly how many, but there's at least. I would. I would guess at least a few hundred got sent out to the various states and stuff. They were trying to send out at least three to every state or almost every state. They want to grow in some places.

[Maria Varmazas]

Well, Dave, is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience today? I know I've taken up a ton of your time, but I've loved learning about this, so thank you so much.

[Dave Williams]

Oh. Oh, geez. Don't know. I always love talking about the book. I mean, let me see. Is there anything, like, really important that I didn't mention? I mean, there's so many little stories and things with them, but do you.

[Maria Varmazas]

Have a favorite you want to share? I mean, I'm sure you've got so many, but anything that comes to mind?

[Dave Williams]

Oh, boy. Let's see. Well, okay, I will tell you the funny one that involves me, and that is when I. Well, I first put up the webpage, and I put up my six trees, and I started hearing from people, and I said, oh, okay, here's another tree. And here's another tree. And I started adding to it. I was probably up for maybe six months or so, and I got a call from someone at Goddard and They said, why don't you have the Goddard moon tree on your page? And I said, there's a Goddard moon tree, so. So, you know, not the world's greatest detective. So I assure enough. There is, there is a. There is a tree at the visitor center, a moon tree, first generation moon tree that was planted at Goddard. And it does have a little sign. Now it is off to the side. It is not along a path. There's no way to get to it unless you kind of walk across the grass. So if you noticed it, and obviously at least someone did noticed it and walked across to see what it said. Yeah, there's a sign and it said the moon tree. And it was planted and you know, it went on the Apollo 14 and. But, but that was, that was too funny. I'm like, okay, great. I'm the world's foremost expo on moon trees, except for the one that's, you.

[Maria Varmazas]

Know, literally in your, your backyard. Well, I'm glad that one is. That I can verify. Indeed it is there, I see it on the list. That's great. Well, you never know, there might be one that someone has been walking by and they go, oh, moon tree. Who knows what that means? And now they'll know that someone's looking for it.

[Dave Williams]

I'm always hoping. And I have a few, if you look on the list too, that are sort of status unknown. Because I've gotten either newspaper clipping or information from some archive. An intern at the New York State Archives a couple years ago just got interested in this and found a whole bunch of stuff at the archives and sent it to me. A bunch of. Yeah, it was great. I mean, he just sort of decided to always do this, you know, as part of his internship or something. And he found a bunch of the details. So there's like, there were like supposedly four trees sent to New York State, but I can't find evidence of any of them. But there's all these letters about. They were, you know, the seedlings were shipped there and they had these plans to plant them here and there and the other thing and then that. And that's it. I can't find another thing which is, you know, not atypical of what happens with these things. The trail just goes cold. Huh.

[Maria Varmazas]

Well, maybe some of our New Yorker listeners can, if, if they know anything. Yeah, I'm looking. I'm like, all of them are status unknown.

[Dave Williams]

No, I heard about, I heard not too long ago someone sent me clipping about one in Maryland. And so I went to see and I couldn't find any sycamores where it was supposed to be. It was supposedly, you know, supposedly a sycamore was planted there. Couldn't find any sycamores there. But I did get in touch with someone and I'm hoping to maybe get a little more information about that. So, yeah, yeah, it's still. Still ongoing stuff.

[Maria Varmazas]

Rachel Tillman grew up in the space industry and watched her father's work on the Viking missions to Mars. As an adult, she took it on herself to preserve the story of those missions to share with future generations.

[Rachel Tillman]

I'm the founder and director of the Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project. And what we do is we preserve the history, artifacts, oral histories of all the individuals of all genders that worked on the Viking mission to the surface and orbital space of Mars in the 1970s. I came into this mission because of my father who was a scientist on the mission. And I was very interested at a very young age in life on Mars because people were always asking that question as we ventured into the Viking space more and more deeply.

[Maria Varmazas]

So for people who now I would like to think that everyone listening to the show knows about the Vikings, but a lot of people don't. And as I know you've encountered. So let's just start there. Tell me about the Vikings.

[Rachel Tillman]

The mission itself launched in 1975 and landed on the surface of Mars after being in orbit for a number of days in 1976. So July 20, 1976. It did not land on July 4, which was the intended date, but instead we had to do a recertification, a re site certification, because the orbiters of Viking were vastly greater than Those of Mariner 9, which was used to select the original landing sites. So during the orbit entry date and the landing date, the teams kicked into high gear to do recertification of not just one Viking lander, but two, because we launched two vehicles, two orbiters, and had two landers ready to perform immense amounts of science about the atmosphere and the surface of Mars. So I call it 6 out of 6 because it's. The launch vehicles are equally important. Titan 3e with a Centaur front end. So many people collaborated to work on that, not just NASA. Most NASA missions are about 10 to 20, maybe 30% NASA. And the other 70 to 90% are actually not NASA employees. They are scientists like my father at the University of Washington, colleges and universities and educational institutes all across the world, not just in the United States. So it was a multinational mission, despite the fact that it was not represented that way. And the basis of the Science, instrumentation, design, the landing and edl, the atmospheric data that we had during the process of actually flying to Mars and entering, were all supplemented by individuals from all around the world, including at the time, the Soviet Union, who, despite the Cold War, the scientists were surreptitiously communicating back and forth to each other. And we even have letters from the Soviet Union, Mars, three team members saying, hey, we just had our attempt to land. This is what we've learned, yada, yada. So incredible collaboration all across the globe to make these missions six out of six.

[Maria Varmazas]

That's amazing. And I know with all these missions, especially these early missions, it's kind of hard to be like, give me a high level of what we learned, because we learned so much and we always do. But I mean, if you had to give it like a headline, here's what we got out of the Vikings. What did we learn? What did we take away from them?

[Rachel Tillman]

Well, it was represented by the media as the search for life on Mars. And that's wrong in so many ways because, number one, we weren't searching for life. We were searching for biologic organics. So those of us who are in the science world, we get kind of geeky about this. And we don't use words like soil, which has the implications of actually having extant organics, biological organics. We use the word regolith because we didn't know at that time. So we were looking for biological organics, but we were also trying to understand the elemental characteristics of the planet, including the physical properties. We used an X ray fluorescent system to examine the minerals on the surface. We used my father's and his team, of course, or Seymour Hess's team, which my father served on, to study the atmospheric sciences. So the temperature, the humidity, the wind speed, all kinds of detailed science. We had two seismometers, one on each lander. And they're incredibly sensitive instruments. If you looked at them, you would notice that one of the most important parts of it is a very. It's like a, I don't know what point one micron wire that goes between these two things. It looks a bit like those, you know, toothpick things to help you flush your teeth now. Very much like that.

[Maria Varmazas]

Yeah. Yep.

[Rachel Tillman]

Just for reference. And the only instrument that had any issues upon landing was one seismometer out of all of the instruments. So we had gcms, which was the chemical properties, the biology instruments, of which there were three again, we had imaging, we had X ray fluorescence, we had radio technologies that were being tested at the time we had both a high band antenna and so an S band and a login antenna. So we were actually studying how do we communicate with things that are on Mars? Can we communicate both directly and indirectly through the orbiters and without the orbiters from point to point? We successfully did both. So the amount of things that we learned was immense, just from a scientific standpoint. However, the equally important piece of Viking was the engineering discoveries, and that included almost all elements of the edl, the entry, descent and landing. So the Vikings actually created the disk gap band parachute, which is the only parachute that successfully could withstand the forces of descent after the pyrotechnic separation from the aeroshell. The initial part of the landing was with the aeroshell, which was turned not just into a protective heat shield, which is what aeroshells were in the past, but was actually turned into an aerobraking system using ablative technologies, so that the force of the entry, the speed was reduced by turning that force into the ablation of materials on the exterior side of the shell. And that itself decelerated until it reached a point at which the parachutes could then handle the capacity of the remaining force to be deployed and then slow down the lander. Additionally, until we came to the third element of the EDL, and that was the very first throttle able autonomous AI intelligent landing systems.

[Maria Varmazas]

Before Blue Origin, before SpaceX 1976.

[Rachel Tillman]

Right, let's just get a little perspective there. So we did all of those things and those engineering precedents actually succeeded in setting the standard for all Mars entry. And it has been used in every mission since then, with the exception of Pathfinder, which tried out this other really fun landing system, which was the bouncy balloon.

[Maria Varmazas]

The bouncy ball.

[Dave Williams]

The bouncy ball.

[Rachel Tillman]

And that did work. But we did return to the Viking model after that. Really, those successes were not just scientific successes, but engineering, and that includes computing. So the computing industry kind of grew up with Viking and vice versa? Well, no, it grew up with Viking. Viking was a sequencer, not a parallel processor. So there were in fact no computers on board Viking. There was a sequencer.

[Maria Varmazas]

Okay, can you do. Okay, you just got my computer science brain a little bit like, okay, what do we mean by that? Tell me a little more about that.

[Rachel Tillman]

Sequencing is what it sounds like, right? Sequencing is one command after another being processed, executed, waiting for another command. Parallel processing are multiple sequences occurring simultaneously and if you're clever enough, interacting with each other and influencing the next sequence.

[Maria Varmazas]

Kind of what we think of as today. Yeah, like kind of what we do.

[Rachel Tillman]

Today the difference between parallel. That's what we do today. Everything we do today is parallel or more.

[Maria Varmazas]

Or much more. Yeah, yeah, we got quantum. Now we're way.

[Rachel Tillman]

Yeah, we're way off the grill. But interestingly, even those advances came from Vikings. So the parallel processing technologies actually were developed by individuals that were working on the Viking computing systems.

[Maria Varmazas]

I don't doubt it at all. It's amazing. Yeah, that's where a lot of those things were pushed forward. Really?

[Rachel Tillman]

Oh, yes. DCDs and cameras, all kinds of things were developed from Viking and then have served other, both earthly and other planetary problem solving, you know, missions.

[Maria Varmazas]

I love learning about these kinds of things through people like yourself who are putting in so much work. And I mean, because this is not just. I mean, it is clearly also a personal thing for you, which I think is wonderful. But you're also doing a ton of work. I mean, aside from knowing all this stuff you're also doing, I mean, the Viking preservation project, you sort of touched on a lot of what you're doing, a lot of that educational outreach. But you mentioned early, before we started recording, that you do a lot of interviews with people who worked on the Viking. So please tell me more about that.

[Rachel Tillman]

Well, really, what I decided before founding the nonprofit itself was that if I'm going to preserve the history of the mission, what is the most important asset? And that asset is the people that worked on it, the individuals that worked on Viking, solved the problems, ran into challenges, collaborated, worked together, setting different organizational structures that have never been reproduced since then. And I'll tell a little bit more about that later. And so I decided early on that the most important thing I could do was collect as many oral histories as I possibly could before people pass away. So recording their oral histories was the most important thing I could do. And I've done probably over 300 interviews at this point. And I'm looking for people that worked on Viking in any capacity. You do not have to be a rock star, type A personality. I did this. In fact, if you're the person that doesn't talk about what you do, or if you know somebody that worked on Viking, call me, email me, let me know, because I want to hear from every single individual that worked on the mission. Everybody worked.

[Maria Varmazas]

A very special thank you to our guests today, Dave Williams and Rachel Tillman. If you're interested in hearing more about the space industry, join me every day for T Minus Space Daily, available on all major podcast platforms. Find out [e-mail] we'd love to know what you think of the show. You can email [e-mail] your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. This episode was produced by Ellis Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpy is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Varmazas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. T minus.

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