A

David

Darling

NASA Office of Life Sciences

The Office of Life Sciences is a branch of NASA established in 1960 to deal with biological issues related to the exploration of neighboring worlds, including the search for extraterrestrial life and the problem of contamination. In the same year, NASA set up its first life science laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center and instructed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to begin a study of an unmanned mission to look for life on Mars.