Celebrating Viking at 40 on This Week @NASA – July 22, 2016

Forty years ago, on July 20, 1976, Viking 1 became the first U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on Mars. To celebrate the anniversary of the historic robotic feat and to highlight NASA’s effort to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, Langley Research Center, in Hampton, Virginia hosted a two-day “Viking at 40” event. On July 19, NASA’s Chief Historian Bill Barry moderated a history discussion about the Viking program and its contribution to Mars exploration. The next day, a 40th anniversary symposium called,