In the late 1950s, a small group of scientists began to search for alien life. Among them was geneticist Joshua Lederberg at Stanford, who in 1960 spoke at the First International Space Science Symposium in France. “The demons which lurk beyond the Pillars of Hercules have colored the folklore and literature of ages past and present,” he told the audience, “not always to the benefit of fruitful exploration and dispassionate scientific analysis.”
Rocketry had enabled the scientific study of life on other worlds, he explained, using his new name for the field: “exobiology.” This may have seemed shocking to those who associated alien life primarily with science fiction invasion scenarios like The War of the Worlds.
Lederberg didn’t think that scientists would find intelligent aliens. Instead, he hoped they might find microbes or “astroplankton.” But according to historian Audre Wolfe, cultural narratives around alien invasion complicated things for early exobiologists. To Lederberg himself, those narratives had the situation completely backward.
Lederberg became interested in space science after hearing about Soviet plans to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon, Wolfe explains. Lederberg feared the explosion would contaminate the lunar surface, causing a microbial invasion from Earth that would jeopardize a serious scientific opportunity.
More to Explore
Far Out: Why Don’t We Believe in UFOs?
The origins of life were under active scientific investigation. The 1953 Miller-Urey experiment had recently simulated conditions on a primordial Earth, while Svante Arrhenius’ theory of “panspermia,” or the seeding of life from space, was again under serious discussion. Exobiologists hoped to investigate these theories by looking for the prerequisite molecules for life, and perhaps even extraterrestrial microbes.
Lederberg and other exobiologists sought funding and support for exobiological research and advocated vigorously for spacecraft sterilization. But writers in the popular press struggled to avoid bringing up alien invasion. “Exobiology required the support of both the scientific community and the general public…,” Wolfe writes, “…and explicit comparisons to science fiction threatened that support.”
Overcoming that challenge was difficult, but there were enormous opportunities. If exobiologists revealed the origins of life itself, it would have been arguably more remarkable than any milestone in human spaceflight. This was an important consideration in a space race driven by prestige.
Weekly Newsletter
"*" indicates required fields
Despite this promise, funding was hard to come by at first. Scientific funding was usually awarded along disciplinary lines, explains historian James Strick, but exobiology was inherently interdisciplinary. Lederberg began encouraging younger scientists like Carl Sagan to take up the field. Later, Richard S. Young began cultivating exobiological research at NASA. Since then, the search for signs of life on Mars and other planetary bodies has become a major part of NASA’s mission.
Lederberg believed humanity had serious responsibilities as it ventured into space. As he told his audience in France: “The human species has a vital stake in the orderly, careful, and well-reasoned extension of the cosmic frontier; how we react to the adventuresome and perplexing challenges of space flight will be a crucial measure of the maturity of our national consciences and our concern for posterity.”
