On July 20, 1976, NASA's Viking 1 lander became the first spacecraft to safely touch down on Mars. Shortly after, it beamed back our first close-up image of the surface—a drab view of pebbles strewn at the lander's feet.
"I don't think we'd have been surprised if there were blades of grass," recalls Tom Young, Viking's mission director. Scientists had speculated for years about what scenes would await Viking 1 and its twin, Viking 2, which landed elsewhere on Mars a few weeks later.
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