In another thread, ugordon said:

>I can imagine it must have felt something like that with the Vikings as well.
>If only there was an archive of footage of all these historical events as they
>happened so we can relive the drama as it happened...

Somewhere there is (or was) a web site with a large collection of video clips commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Viking landings. I think it was created in connection with a conference held at Langley to mark the occasion.

It includes, among many other interesting features, lots of archival footage of team members' reactions to the landings, as well as thoughtful comments from the participants 30 years later. It's an impressive collection of material, which would take hours to view completely, and it might provide the kind of "reliving" you're looking for, if it's still online.

Unfortunately I don't have a url, and wasn't able to locate it with google just now. This page discusses the conference and contains some video clips, but the site I remember had many more clips, covering a wide variety of topics related to the mission.

TTT

You're may be talking of this : http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/viking30/

Yes, that's it, thanks very much.

This is fantastic stuff. Thanks for drawing it to our attention.

Great mission, and great hair!

Thanks for the tip - I see many hours disappearing.....

If You really want to get an idea of the atmosphere at JPL during the VIking 1 & 2 landings, get this book:

Yeah... ...Hair notwithstanding (you youngsters don't get it yet, but will when your kids come up with some style or another that migrates into mainstream culture!), sure is important to tell the human side of this almost unbelievably audacious program.

In retrospect, it really is amazing that that they even got one of them down, much less both...I mean, just look at that terrain!!!

Said it before & I'll say it again: probability swings the pendulum both ways. With the VLs, we were extraordinarily lucky.

EDIT: Ahh, I'm a little slow...'atmosphere at JPL?' I get it now... If true, it is most assuredly not like that in the present day at all.

Yes, those faces look wonderfully familiar. I was fortunate to be at JPL from 7/76-3/77 as a student working on Viking. The 70s were definitely a special time. I often wonder how that atmosphere compares with today.