There also are other reasons for thinking the amount of water and also the amount of organics on the surface of Mars were under-reported by the Viking GCMS instrument, the primary reasons for the "no-life" consensus on the Viking missions:

//////////////////////////////////////////////
From: Robert Clark (rgregoryclark@yahoo.com)
Subject: Mars Odyssey lecture and water on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.astro, alt.sci.planetary, rec.arts.sf.science, sci.astro.seti
Date: 2002-05-11 20:57:54 PST

The Thursday, May 9th lecture by Mars Odyssey project manager Roger
Gibbs is available online:

Topic - The Odyssey to Mars
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/may02.html

What I find interesting is about 47 minutes into the video he
describes a discrepancy between the Viking lander GCMS data and the
data returned by the Gamma Ray spectrometer on Mars Odyssey.
According to the March 1st news conference the GRS was described as
indicating "several percent" water content in the Martian soil, in
any case a large amount.
The Viking lander data however suggested an amount of perhaps only 1
to 2 percent water. This is interesting in that spectroscopic
observations also suggest large amounts of water in the Martian soil.
I discuss this in a post to sci.astro below. If it does turn out
that the Viking lander GCMS was inaccurate in determining the amount
of water in the Martian soil, then quite likely it was also
inaccurate in determining the amount of organic material in the
Martian soil as well.

Bob Clark

====================================================
From: Robert Clark (rgclark@m...)
Subject: Review of Barry DiGregorio's Mars: the Living Planet
Newsgroups: sci.astro, alt.sci.planetary, rec.arts.sf.science,
alt.life-mars
Date: 1999/10/13

The following review was posted in the customer reviews on Amazon.com
and BarnesandNoble.com:

In this book DiGregorio admirably discusses evidence for the
conclusion that the Viking missions did in fact discover life on
Mars. This is the view of Drs. Gilbert Levin and Patricia Ann Straat,
who developed one of the instruments, the Labeled Release experiment,
that flew on Viking. The book presents very exciting up to date
information on exotic organisms, extremophiles, that might be found
on other planets. NASA itself is investigating such possibilities
with its Astrobiology program. Finally, the book argues that since
some experiments on Viking gave very definite life signs, missions
such as Mars Sample Return should not be undertaken until the
issue is resolved conclusively.

For the last twenty years, Dr. Levin has consistently argued that no
non-biological explanation faithfully reproduces the results seen in
his experiment. Dr. Levin has shown great insight in regards to the
life on Mars issue. As discussed in DiGregorio's book, he suggested
to the imaging team that there were other colors on Mars than just
dull browns and reds. This was verified by members of the Viking
imaging team who confirmed there were blue and green patches on rocks
that changed seasonally. Levin argued that the dry conditions and
(apparent) low organic content in the Mars soil did not preclude the
existence of life. Since the Viking missions it has been confirmed
that certain organisms can live within igneous rock surviving on
non-organic chemicals for nutrients and on water that trickles
through cracks in the rock. Levin argued in a paper on liquid water
on Mars that a widely cited paper concluding that liquid water could
not exist on the Martian surface was based on a faulty assumption
that water vapor was evenly distributed through the Martian
atmospheric column. The Pathfinder mission confirmed that water vapor
was restricted to the bottom 1 to 3km above the Martian surface.

Another factor Digregorio discusses in his book is the evidence that
there may be active volcanism on Mars. This is important to the life
issue since this indicates heat and or hydrothemal systems on the
Martian surface. And the National Science Foundation's report on the
Mars Sample Return mission admits that such would increase the chance
for life on Mars. Recently from Mars Global Surveyor images it has
been concluded that Mars lava flows could be as young as 200 thousand
years, which would make it virtually certain that volcanism continues
today.

In reading over the history of the controversy over the conflicting
results from the Vking missions, it occurs to me there is a basic
flaw in subsequent investigations to resolve the conflicting results.
They all assume there was something wrong with Levin's Labeled
Release experiment and the GCMS, which indicated no organics on Mars,
was right. DiGregorio discusses the fact that it was first believed
there was a problem in the LRx when it gave positive responses. But
the engineering team confirmed it was operating properly. In
contrast, there was one important factor with the GCMS that was
definitely wrong and two others that possibly were wrong. As
DiGregorio mentions the GCMS NEVER GOT AN INDICATION THAT SAMPLES
WERE DELIVERED TO THE CHAMBER. This indicates that either there was a
flaw in the mechanism detecting sample delivery or the GCMS never got
a large enough sample to register. If the second is true then that
has clear implications for its failure to detect organics on Mars.
Two other failings of the Viking GCMS is that it could be "poisoned"
by soil with high sulfur content, known to be true of Mars, and the
fact that it could not detect the organic equivalent of fewer than a
million cells per gram.

Given these facts you would think that at least some research would
have gone into showing how the GCMS could have given a wrong result.
Yet all the research (other than Levin's) went to showing why the LRx
was wrong. Why? Scientists are a conservative bunch. Rather than
making the truly revolutionary claim that life had been discovered on
Mars, they simply preferred to make the safe assumption that the
instruments indicating life present were flawed. However, the history
of science shows that great discoveries are made when scientists with
insight go beyond the safe assumptions, and view the evidence
dispassionately and go wherever it leads. What should have given
scientists pause is the fact that the conclusion that the GCMS was
right and the LRx wrong was based not on scientific factors but
solely on the assumption that that is the way things should be.

So how can we determine whether it was the LRx or the GCMS that was
flawed? A recent paper by Yen, Murray, and Rossman may give a clue:

Water content of the Martian soil: Laboratory simulations of
reflectance spectra,
Authors: YEN, A. S.; MURRAY, B. C.; ROSSMAN, G. R.,
Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 103, No. E5, p. 11,125
(1998).

This paper shows there is a discrepancy between the water content of
the Martian soil as determined by the GCMS and determined by all other
Earth-based and orbiter observations, perhaps by a factor of 1 to 2
orders of magnitude. The upcoming Mars Polar Lander due to land on
Mars in December will test the water content of the Martian soil. If
it confirms the high water content of all other observations than the
GCMS then that would indicate a gross error in the GCMS water
analysis and by extension in the organic analysis as well.

Bob Clark

****************************************************

The cited JGR paper is available online:

Water content of the Martian soil: Laboratory simulations
of reflectance spectra
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~marssurf/waterice/soilh2o/

The authors suggest an explanation of why the GCMS
results differ from all the other observations in regard
to water content of the Martian soil (they also assume
the GCMS was right.) However, one of the assumptions they
use seems dubius. They assume there would be little water
in the basaltic rock composing the Martian surface.
However, this is not true on Earth and in fact they had
to heat their laboratory samples to remove their water.
Moreover, this is also unlikely on Mars given the large
number of 'fluidized' ejecta around Martian craters that
have been attributed to water within the Martian regolith:

Mars Orbiter Camera high resolution images:
'Fluidized' crater ejecta deposit
http://www.floridatoday.com/space/explore/stories/1998b/08
1598b.htm

--
______________________________________________

"In order for a scientific revolution to occur,
most scientists have to be wrong"
-- Bob Clark
______________________________________________

===================================================

//////////////////////////////////////////////
From: Robert Clark (rgregoryclark@yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: Mars Odyssey lecture and water on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.astro, alt.sci.planetary, rec.arts.sf.science, sci.astro.seti
Date: 2002-05-12 06:59:39 PST

Thanks for your as usual insightful comments.
If you note in the lecture Gibbs shows in fact a distribution of water
in areas including the Northern hemishere. This happens about 47
minutes into the lecture. If you are using the RealOne player you
should be able to scroll to this portion of the lecture. Also, recall
late last year the GRS team released preliminary reports of large
amounts of water in the northern hemisphere as well:

New Signs of Water on Mars Create Hope of Great Discovery.
By Leonard David,Senior Space Writer and Robert Roy Britt,Senior
Science Writer
posted: 09:07 am ET, 14 December 2001
"The quantity of hydrogen detected was so startling -- suggesting a
huge concentration relative to what Feldman saw with a similar
instrument on Lunar Prospector, which surveyed the Moon -- that
researchers may task Odyssey to begin mapping crustal water ice during
the first week January, Garvin said."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/odyssey_hydrogen_011214.html

Gibbs did offer the possibility that GRS was seeing water deeper down
but note that the spectrographic data would be of water at the
surface. I should say though in that article I cited by Yen et.al.
they did discuss one article by Houck et.al. that is consistent with
the 1 to 2% figure of the GCMS:

Houck, J.R., J.B. Pollack, C. Sagan, D. Schaack, and J.A. Decker Jr.,
High Altitude Infrared Spectroscopic Evidence for Bound Water on Mars,
Icarus, 18, 470-480, 1973.

In regards to the GCMS never receiving a sample full indication note
that in the reports on the instrument it is acknowledged it has to be
assumed that a sample of correct size was delivered:

"The are two positions to which any of the ovens
can be moved in any sequence. The load position is
directly under the sampling system, which delivers about
1-2 cm^3 of surface material that after having been
ground is passed through a 0.3 mm sieve. A mechanical
poker pushes the material through a funnel into the oven.
This operation is timed in such a manner that the filling
of the oven is complete with any of the terrestrial test
soils (including finely ground basalt, commonly referred
to as 'lunar nominal'). However, there is no sensor
measuring the final level or completeness of the fulling
operation. Thus one has to assume that the oven is filled
to capacity, i.e., approximately 60 mm^3 of surface
material is being analyzed."
The Search for Organic Substances and Inorganic Volatile
Compounds in the Surface of Mars,
Jour. Geophys. Res., vol. 82, no. 28, September 30, 1977, p. 4642.

Pictures and a description of the sample collectors are given in an
online NASA publication:

ON MARS
Exploration of the Red Planet 1958-1978.
"The first soil samples were acquired on sol 8, 28
July. Four samples were dug, with the first being
deposited into the biology instrument distributor
assembly, the next two into the GCMS processor, and
the fourth into the funnel of the x-ray fluorescence
spectrometer. All the commands were successfully
executed, but there was no positive indication that the
gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer processor
had been properly filled. A second acquisition attempt
still did not provide a "sample level detector `full'
indication". The sampler system, having completed its
programmed sequences in a normal manner, parked the boom
as planned. On Earth, the lander performance specialists
began to analyze the possible causes of the anomaly: (1)
insufficient sample acquired in the collector head
because the same sample collection
site had also been used for the biology sample; (2)
insufficient time allowed for the sample to pass from the
funnel through the sample grinding section and then
through the fine (300-micrometer) sieve into the metering
cavity of the instrument; (3) grinder stirring spring not
contacting the sieve; or (4) sample-level-detector
circuit faulty. Since the "level-full" detector
consisted of a very fine wire stretched across the cavity
to which the sample material was
delivered, it was also possible that it had broken when
the soil was dropped into the funnel."
Ch. 11-5 SCIENCE ON MARS
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4212/ch11-5.html

Note as well that the sample full indicators for the biology
experiments were exactly of the same type yet they did get sample full
indications at both lander sites. The only difference between the
sample delivery to the biology experiments and to the GCMS was that
the GCMS used a much smaller sieving grid (0.3 mm) *before* being
passed through the sample full indicator. The obvious conclusion to
draw is that the small sieving grid somehow prevented full samples
from being delivered, for example if there were several large grains,
bigger than 300 microns, that blocked the grid.

If there were large amounts of water in the sample then that would be
taken as an indication of a sample being delivered by the GCMS
detecting that water. That is, the water that was detected might mean
a full sample was delivered which contained low amounts of water, the
accepted interpretation, or it could mean an unexpectedly small sample
was delivered that contained large amounts of water. Keep in mind
again, since the sample full indicator never registered, it is
impossible to know for sure what was the size of the sample delivered.

Bob Clark

henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote in message
news:<GvzFuz.MrJ@spsystems.net>...
> In article <832ea96d.0205111957.69851900@posting.google.com>,
> Robert Clark <rgregoryclark@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >...describes a discrepancy between the Viking lander GCMS data and the
> >data returned by the Gamma Ray spectrometer on Mars Odyssey.
>
> My first reaction is that there are so many differences in how the two
> measurements were taken that this may not mean a whole lot. For one
> thing, if I recall correctly, the GRS penetrates rather more deeply.
>
> Not to be overlooked, also, is that the two measurements are a quarter of
> a century apart... and as the MGS images of the south-pole area recently
> revealed, Mars is changing slowly in poorly-understood ways.
>
> >According to the March 1st news conference the GRS was described as
> >indicating "several percent" water content in the Martian soil...
>
> Uh, that was in the *south pole* region (south of 60degS). That's not
> where the Vikings were.
>
> >DiGregorio mentions the GCMS NEVER GOT AN INDICATION THAT SAMPLES
> >WERE DELIVERED TO THE CHAMBER. This indicates that either there was a
> >flaw in the mechanism detecting sample delivery or the GCMS never got
> >a large enough sample to register.
>
> The former. There was definitely a sample in the chamber when the GCMS
> runs were actually made -- an empty chamber would not have produced those
> results. (In fact, the guys who had been sweating over the lack of a
> "chamber full" signal were greatly relieved when they saw that.)
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