Science: Life on Mars

Ever since Galileo stuck a couple of lenses in a length of pipe and got a glimpse of the solar system, scientists and storytellers have worked overtime peopling the outer universe with living creatures. It is high time, says Dr. Hubertus Strughold of the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, "to raise the question of life on other planets to the biological plane where it belongs ..."

In a new book, The Green and Red Planet (University of New Mexico Press; $4), Dr. Strughold raises the question with restraint. Mercury, says he, is far too hot to bother with. From Jupiter to Pluto, the other planets are frozen stiff. Only Mars and Venus could support life. But the little that astronomers can see suggests that the Venusian atmosphere has neither oxygen nor water. Mars alone is worth investigating.

The Martian atmosphere also seems to lack oxygen. This fact alone, says the careful physiologist, rules out all higher forms of life—as earthlings understand life. Warm-blooded "little men from Mars," therefore, will probably never try to invade New Jersey. But Martian plant life (e.g., mosses and lichens that can manufacture their own oxygen) is entirely possible. From this distance, there is not" much more to be learned about the far-off planet that looks pale red to the naked eye. If rocket riders ever get to Mars, says Dr. Strughold, the first explorer to return will be able to report "whether he finds an exotic vista of living things, burgeoning luxuriously by processes unknown to us, or a simple prospect of humble lichens, reviving and declining with the seasons . . ."