Word: martianize
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...orbiter. About ten minutes later, two rocket engines in the aeroshell will begin firing, slowing the lander to bring it out of orbit and into a descent path. Some 150 miles from the surface, traveling at more than 10,000 m.p.h., Viking will encounter the outer fringes of the Martian atmosphere and be slowed by aerodynamic drag (the aeroshell will act as a shield to absorb frictional heat...
...Martian Soil. At this point, instruments aboard Viking will begin sniffing the atmosphere, counting charged particles and identifying the gases as the craft descends. Farther down, other instruments will begin recording temperature, pressure and density of the thickening atmosphere. At 19,000 ft., now descending at only 560 m.p.h., the lander will unfurl a parachute, jettison its aeroshell and extend its landing legs...
...site will be disturbed as little as possible, each of the braking rockets will fire through a showerhead arrangement of 18 nozzles to diffuse the blast. The rocket fuel is also hydrocarbon-free to avoid confusing Viking's life-seeking instruments. When the first Viking foot pad touches Martian soil, it will trip a sensor that shuts off the engines. Eighteen minutes later controllers will know, by signals sent from the lander, if a successful touchdown has been made...
...large life forms that could have evolved on Mars are ";petrophages" (rock eaters), which get their water and minerals from rocks; "crystophages" (ice eaters), which tap the permafrost beneath the surface; and creatures with shell-like shields for protection against the strong ultraviolet solar radiation that reaches the Martian surface...
...there is Martian life, in the view of most Viking scientists, it more likely exists in the form of tiny, hardy organisms too small for Viking's cameras to perceive. It is these life forms that Viking's ingenious biology laboratory is designed to seek out. Eight days after the landing-an interval during which Viking will monitor Martian weather and seismology and shoot the mission's first color pictures-the ingeniously conceived and packaged laboratory (which occupies about a cubic foot of space) will begin operating. The surface sampler, a power-shovel-like bucket, will...