The Importance Of Space In Andy Weir's The Martian

Depending on the person's size and weight, one could only live for approximately three weeks before dying of starvation. So obviously the colonies will need food in order to survive. There have many ideas, put forth by NASA and SpaceX; that involve sending pre supply probes that contain food and other necessities, a couple years in advance. This would be similar to how the Ares missions worked in The Martian, by Andy Weir. In the book, NASA would send these packages of food, and other materials, to land in the area which the crew planned to set up the main base. When the crew arrives at the designated site, they gather all of the supplies and construct their main shelter, the HAB, as well as storing their food. Unfortunately, the Ares missions …show more content…
So NASA would need to send a much larger amount of food to make these missions successful. However, if the goal is to establish permanent colonies, settlers would need to develop a way to grow food on Mars. In the Martian, the character Mark Watney survives his dilemma because he is able to use his knowledge of Botany to grow potatoes in the Martian soil. Watney turns the HAB floor, as well as some pop up tents normally used in case of a rover breakdown, into a garden by covering it in a layer Mars’ red dirt. The soil on Earth contains certain bacteria and nutrients that are an essential part of germination and plant grow. So he took a sample of Earth soil that was sent by NASA, along with the human waste he and his initial crew produced, and used it to fertilize the soil. Once the soil had the right amount of nutrients and bacterial activity, he started planting his potato plants (Weir). A similar process would need to be utilized to grow food on the Martian surface. However, the book left out a few important key details. For one, Mars only receives 60 percent of the sunlight that the Earth