Does life exist anywhere else in the Universe besides on our planet? This question was posed as the Viking Spacecraft blasted off from Earth to continue the scientific exploration of Mars. The Viking Lander, millions of miles from the Earth, performs by remote control, chemical experiments which can determine the presence or absence of life by searching for the exponential "population explosion" that accompanies uncontrolled growth processes. Thus, the film shows how conventional concepts of reaction rate behavior can differentiate growth processes from other chemical reactions. An exact duplicate of the Lander, located in Pasadena, California, reenacts what happened on Mars. The experiments are demonstrated, and explained simply, through animation and table-top experiments.

Collaborator: Professor George C. Pimentel, University of California, Berkeley, California.

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