Patricia Ann Straat (March 28, 1936 – October 23, 2020) was an American space scientist. She was part of the labeled release experiment of

Viking program The ''Viking'' program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, ''Viking 1'' and ''Viking 2'', which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars f ...

and part of the

infrared interferometer spectrometer and radiometer An Infrared interferometer spectrometer and radiometer (IRIS) is a device built into the Voyager space probe which enables the measurement of three distinct properties. The instrument itself consists of two separate instruments that together share ...

on the

Mariner 9 Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a robotic spacecraft that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the NASA Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from LC-36B at Cape Canaveral Air ...

mission. In 2019 Straat wrote the book ''To Mars With Love'', which documented the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars.

Early life and education

P. Straat was born in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. She attended

Irondequoit High School Irondequoit High School (IHS) is a public high school in the town of Irondequoit, a major suburb of Rochester, New York. History Irondequoit District Number 3 renamed their original ''Irondequoit Union Free School'' as Irondequoit High School in 1 ...

. Her parents were Marcelline and Harold Straat, and her father was an optical engineer. She has said that she became interested in space as a child, and could name all of the constellations in her night sky by the age of 12. Straat earned her undergraduate degree at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

, a liberal arts school in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. She moved to

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

for her graduate studies, where she specialised in biochemistry.

Research and career

Straat worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1968. Straat worked on molecular biology and enzymes. She said that the

moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959. The United St ...

reminded her of her childhood love for space, and began to consider changing career. A few months later, Straat was headhunted by

Gilbert Levin Gilbert Victor Levin (April 23, 1924 – July 26, 2021) was an American engineer, the founder of Biospherics and the principal investigator of the ''Viking'' mission Labeled Release experiment. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1997, Levin ...

, who had recently been successful in proposing an experiment for a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

mission to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

. Straat was involved with the

Viking Mission The ''Viking'' program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, ''Viking 1'' and ''Viking 2'', which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars f ...

, and worked alongside Levin on the Labeled Release (LR) experiment. In 1970 Straat joined Biospherics Inc, a spin-out company owned by Levin, where she worked as a biochemist. Together they searched for organic gases in the Martian atmosphere. She spent her first few years at Biospherics Inc developing science and hardware. The Viking Mission landed on Mars in 1976, with the landed release mission starting ten days after Viking landed. The mission mixed small samples of soil from Mars with drops of water that contained nutrients tagged with

Carbon-14 Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and coll ...

in a chamber. Measurements were then made of the atmosphere of the internal chamber: if they detected the evolution of radioactive ¹⁴CO₂, microorganisms in the soil must have metabolised the nutrients. When the soil sample showed positive results, and a heat-sterilised control sample returned negative results, the scientific community was surprised. Straat and Levin believed that their labeled release results showed indications of microbial life on Mars. After a decade at Biospherics Inc, Straat joined the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, where she held various leadership positions, including overseeing the referral section. In 2019 Straat wrote the book ''To Mars With Love'', which documented the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars. The journal ''

Astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...

'' described ''To Mars With Love'' as a “remarkable book, by a remarkable woman, about a remarkable instrument on the most remarkable mission ever to go to Mars,”.

Selected publications

* * *

Personal life

Straat suffered from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

. She died in October 2020, and was survived by her partner Mary Grande.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Straat, Patricia Ann NASA people Women space scientists Space scientists 1936 births 2020 deaths