NASA painting of Viking as it might appear above Mars

nuclear power reactors with an elec­trical capacity of 41,954 Mw licensed to operate. These units account for more than 8% of total U.S. electric­ity-generating capacity. However, reactors that are either under con­struction or planned will bring the total U.S. nuclear commitment up to 228 reactors with a capacity of 226,189 Mw. •

All systems go for July 4 Mars landing Everything appears to be set for the July 4 landing of the Viking I Mars probe, National Aeronautics & Space Administration officials say. Barring a major catastrophe, the unmanned spacecraft was to go into orbit around the Red Planet on June 19, the date for proper orbit insertion.

A second Viking will approach Mars about seven weeks later. It is scheduled to begin orbiting the planet on Aug. 7, with a landing planned for Sept. 4.

Launched one year ago, Viking has a host of scientific instruments that will perform a battery of experiments on the Martian surface, including several to detect signs of life. The landing vehicle that will descend from the orbiting craft also has color and black and white facsimile cameras to send to earth panoramic and detailed pictures of Mars' surface. In fact, the first data radioed back to earth will be a picture of one of the lander's feet on Martian soil, giving scientists an im­mediate idea of its texture.

Probably the most significant sci­entific experiments will be carried out over several weeks by a miniature, yet highly sophisticated chemistry and biology laboratory in the lander. Samples of Martian soil will be scooped up by a mechanical arm on the lander and brought inside the capsule for scientific processing.

For example, a gas chromato-graph/mass spectrometer will analyze for organic compounds by heating about 0.1 gram of surface material to 500° C in a miniature oven. Com­pounds driven off will be separated by the gas chromatograph, and the mass spectra continuously recorded. The instrument has a mass range of slightly more than 200 mass units, and can detect a few parts per million of total organics produced by samples during heating.

The GC/MS also may be used to study the composition of Mars' at­mosphere, provided not too much argon gas is present. An earlier Soviet probe, NASA says, indicated that there may be as much as 30% argon in the Martian atmosphere, and this

could adversely affect GC/MS oper­ation. In addition to the chemistry that Viking instruments will perform, several biological studies will be conducted using Martian soil. These experiments will try to find Martian organisms by incubating soil samples

EPA research plans ca In its first attempt to present a com­prehensive five-year (1976-80) envi­ronmental research agenda for Con­gressional review, the Environmental Protection Agency's performance appears to be less than good. The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which did the critique at the request of the House Science & Technology Committee, finds that, above all, EPA has failed to indicate a commitment to long-range research and—as a corollary— has focused excessively on short-term R&D issues related directly to the enforcement and achievement of its regulatory responsibilities.

In addition, OTA finds that EPA has placed the highest priority on technological solutions to environ­mental problems. According to OTA, effective strategies of environmental management must combine both technological and nontechnical ap­proaches, and must require greater contributions from socioeconomic research than "appears to be provid­ed" by EPA's plan.

The five-year plan does not address such essential questions as: Can con­trol technologies reduce pollution fast enough to keep pace with economic growth? Can major shifts in economy, such as a new industry, be made compatible with environmental quality? What balance should be struck between research on pollutants affecting people today and those that could affect future generations— through genetic mutations or gradual changes in the environment?

And the plan does not recognize the function of EPA as coordinator of federal environmental programs,

under several different environmen­tal conditions. Analyses of samples will be done by pyrolytic release, ra­diolabeled release, and gas exchange. But even these tests may not estab­lish unequivocally whether life exists on Mars, NASA officials concede. •

ed shortsighted which are fragmented at present. Further, the agency does not clearly delineate program priorities nor does it relate priorities to overall program goals. Its planning process is vague, says OTA, and no guidelines are of­fered for future updates of the plan. (The EPA R&D authorization bill for fiscal year 1976 requires that the agency annually submit to Congress a comprehensive five-year plan for environmental R&D and demon­stration.) D

Bioreactor removes phenol from effluents A new approach to removing phenolic contaminants from wastewater by using bacteria is under development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Charles D. Scott, chief of ORNL's experimental engineering section, describes the apparatus as a tapered, fluid-bed bioreactor. It is being con­sidered primarily as a means for cleaning up effluents from coal con­version plants, but it has other uses.

Effluents from coal conversion plants are expected to contain con­siderable concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, phenols, thiocy-anates, and other hydrocarbons. Most of these contaminants can be recov­ered by conventional stripping pro­cesses. However, even the depheno-lated liquors will have a phenol level greater than 50 ppm, well above ac­ceptable limits. It is in the reduction of these residual concentrations that the ORNL bioreactor is expected to find application.

June 21, 1976 C&EN 7