Apollo 13 was a major victory for humanity against the dark and dangerous abyss of space. NASA was able to repurpose and adapt to rapidly deteriorating conditions allowing the astronauts to return to Earth safely. The Martian by Andy Weir, fast forwards to a futuristic mission in which the protagonist, Mark Watney, becomes stranded on Mars. While he and the crew were trying to evacuate their base during a sandstorm, an antenna pierces Mark’s suit and throws him backwards. With Mark presumably dead and their escape being time sensitive, the crew is forced to evacuate leaving him behind. He miraculously survives the wound and returns to the base, however has no way to communicate with Earth or to survive until the next landing on the planet.
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After being stranded within his martian base also known as the Hab, Watney immediately begins attempting to extend his lifetime, hoping for a rescue attempt. Because he does not have enough food to survive until a rescue attempt he faced the daunting task of creating a farm within the base. Watney initially faces two major issues when trying to create a farm lack of dirt and nothing edible to plant (Weir 12). Despite these challenges, Watney begins repurposing supplies for his cause. He begins adding moisture and biomatter to martian soil in order to create fertile soil for the crops. Watney proceeded to use potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal to sprout new spuds. Weir utilizes Watney’s farm in order to provide a specific comparison. The comparison is made to when humans began planting seeds inventing farming. The advent of farming is called the Neolithic Revolution and represented a turning point in the formation of society. Later in the novel when attempting to create the necessary volume of soil for sustained plant growth, he runs into the problem with maintaining soil moisture. Within the Hab there is not enough water to sustain both Watney and his plants. Watney devises a plan to use rocket fuel and the martian atmosphere to produce hydrogen and oxygen gas. He then plans to controllably ignite the hydrogen and oxygen gas to form water (Weir 26). …show more content…
While initially preparing for his trek, Mark is able to communicate with NASA allowing him to focus on labor while NASA’s staff of scientists handled his technical issues. Howbeit, while modifying one of the rovers, Mark destroys the electronics of the Pathfinder which prevents interplanetary communication (Weir 228). This provides another outlet with which his creativity and unique approach can be demonstrated. If NASA had been allowed to plan the entire approach, the novel would have consisted of narration of a series of instructions demonstrating only his ability to listen. This creative choice by Weir is important to the furthering of the revealing of Watney’s ingenuity. Weir utilizes the isolation when Mark is faced with the task of providing himself with oxygen and water for the duration of the journey. He plans to use solar energy to power the atmosphere regulator, water reclaimer and oxygenator. In order to power these he creates an out of the box approach such that “as with most of life’s problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation” (Weir 233). The box of radiation, more scientifically known as the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). The RTG was originally used to power an ascent vehicle but Mark changes its purpose from energy to heat production. He uses it to significantly the power intake of the atmosphere regulator allowing him to
After being stranded within his martian base also known as the Hab, Watney immediately begins attempting to extend his lifetime, hoping for a rescue attempt. Because he does not have enough food to survive until a rescue attempt he faced the daunting task of creating a farm within the base. Watney initially faces two major issues when trying to create a farm lack of dirt and nothing edible to plant (Weir 12). Despite these challenges, Watney begins repurposing supplies for his cause. He begins adding moisture and biomatter to martian soil in order to create fertile soil for the crops. Watney proceeded to use potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal to sprout new spuds. Weir utilizes Watney’s farm in order to provide a specific comparison. The comparison is made to when humans began planting seeds inventing farming. The advent of farming is called the Neolithic Revolution and represented a turning point in the formation of society. Later in the novel when attempting to create the necessary volume of soil for sustained plant growth, he runs into the problem with maintaining soil moisture. Within the Hab there is not enough water to sustain both Watney and his plants. Watney devises a plan to use rocket fuel and the martian atmosphere to produce hydrogen and oxygen gas. He then plans to controllably ignite the hydrogen and oxygen gas to form water (Weir 26). …show more content…
While initially preparing for his trek, Mark is able to communicate with NASA allowing him to focus on labor while NASA’s staff of scientists handled his technical issues. Howbeit, while modifying one of the rovers, Mark destroys the electronics of the Pathfinder which prevents interplanetary communication (Weir 228). This provides another outlet with which his creativity and unique approach can be demonstrated. If NASA had been allowed to plan the entire approach, the novel would have consisted of narration of a series of instructions demonstrating only his ability to listen. This creative choice by Weir is important to the furthering of the revealing of Watney’s ingenuity. Weir utilizes the isolation when Mark is faced with the task of providing himself with oxygen and water for the duration of the journey. He plans to use solar energy to power the atmosphere regulator, water reclaimer and oxygenator. In order to power these he creates an out of the box approach such that “as with most of life’s problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation” (Weir 233). The box of radiation, more scientifically known as the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). The RTG was originally used to power an ascent vehicle but Mark changes its purpose from energy to heat production. He uses it to significantly the power intake of the atmosphere regulator allowing him to