Is ''The Martian'' Movie Realistic?
I recently went to the theater to see Matt Damon's newest picture, ''The Martian''. In it, Damon stars as Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut who finds himself stuck on Mars after a freak dust storm forces him and his team (Ares III) off of the planet. When Watney is struck by debri before he can enter the ship home, the rest of the crew is forced to assume he's dead and leave without him. What they don't know is that Watney survived, due to the debri actually patching the hole it made in his spacesuit, meaning he won't run out of oxygen for a while after. Finding himself trapped on the planet with no immediate way of escape, Watney is forced to improvise. Growing patatoes becomes his primary sourse of food, …show more content…
The answer, surprisingly, is mostly yes. Only a few bits of the movie don't add up, while the majority certainly could. Let's start with one of the biggest flaws: the dust storm that seperates Watney from the rest of the team. According to NASA, dust storms certainly happen on Mars, but due to the thin atmosphere of the planet, the force of the winds would only be around 11 mph. This means it won't have near the impact that it does in the movie. To the movies credit, much of the crew admits its simply used to move the plot along and leave Watney stranded. Next up is the matter of the Pathfinder uplink Watney sets up to communicate with NASA. NASA says that it would absolutley be possible, since if you replaced the batteries and repowered it, everything else should still be functioning. Lastly, I'll cover martion soil. In the movie, Watney uses the soil to grow patatoes, but would the soil actually be of any use? NASA says yes. In terms of basic mineral and chemical content, it would be possible to grow plants in Martian soil. They even have experiments going on that simulate Mars soil, and it indicates that it's a very realistic
I recently went to the theater to see Matt Damon's newest picture, ''The Martian''. In it, Damon stars as Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut who finds himself stuck on Mars after a freak dust storm forces him and his team (Ares III) off of the planet. When Watney is struck by debri before he can enter the ship home, the rest of the crew is forced to assume he's dead and leave without him. What they don't know is that Watney survived, due to the debri actually patching the hole it made in his spacesuit, meaning he won't run out of oxygen for a while after. Finding himself trapped on the planet with no immediate way of escape, Watney is forced to improvise. Growing patatoes becomes his primary sourse of food, …show more content…
The answer, surprisingly, is mostly yes. Only a few bits of the movie don't add up, while the majority certainly could. Let's start with one of the biggest flaws: the dust storm that seperates Watney from the rest of the team. According to NASA, dust storms certainly happen on Mars, but due to the thin atmosphere of the planet, the force of the winds would only be around 11 mph. This means it won't have near the impact that it does in the movie. To the movies credit, much of the crew admits its simply used to move the plot along and leave Watney stranded. Next up is the matter of the Pathfinder uplink Watney sets up to communicate with NASA. NASA says that it would absolutley be possible, since if you replaced the batteries and repowered it, everything else should still be functioning. Lastly, I'll cover martion soil. In the movie, Watney uses the soil to grow patatoes, but would the soil actually be of any use? NASA says yes. In terms of basic mineral and chemical content, it would be possible to grow plants in Martian soil. They even have experiments going on that simulate Mars soil, and it indicates that it's a very realistic