Newsroom

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- NASA's Mars Viking program made history and changed the future of space exploration, influencing engineering, science, art and culture. At the Corvallis Science Pub on Monday, Nov. 14, Rachel Tillman and several members of the Viking team will share stories about the pathfinding mission to the red planet.

Viking achieved the first successful landing of a probe on Mars and sent back photos from the surface.

When she was 11 years old, Tillman, the daughter of the last program director James Tillman, saved the last flight-ready Viking Mars Lander from becoming scrap metal. Her efforts led her to found the Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project.

The lander was the first of what has become the largest and most diverse collection of Viking mission materials in existence. These materials include the original data tapes, microfilm, fiche and oral history interviews.

The Science Pub is free and open to the public. It begins at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli, 341 S.W. Second St. in Corvallis.

Sponsors of Science Pub include Terra magazine at OSU, the Downtown Corvallis Association and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.