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The Real NASA Technologies In 'The Martian'
An anonymous reader writes: On October 2, movie audiences will get to see Ridley Scott's adaptation of Andy Weir's brilliant sci-fi novel The Martian, about a near-future astronaut who gets left for dead on the planet Mars. (Official trailer.) Both book and film are rooted in actual science, and NASA has now posted a list of technologies featured in the movie that either already exist, or are in development. For example, the Mars rover: "On Earth today, NASA is working to prepare for every encounter with the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV). The MMSEV has been used in NASA's analog mission projects to help solve problems that the agency is aware of and to reveal some that may be hidden. The technologies are developed to be versatile enough to support missions to an asteroid, Mars, its moons and other missions in the future." They also show off their efforts to develop water reclamation, gardens in space, and oxygen recovery.
>> Ridley Scott's adaptation
I saw Promethius. Forgive me if my hopes aren't that high for "The Martian."
Compared to the primordial African savanna "Eden" we evolved to fit, most of the places where humans already live are unbelievably harsh. Clothing, agriculture, shelter and other simple technologies have brought us this far. Now, civilization and high-order technology are combining in ways that are about to make things really interesting.
Man plus machine form a complex that can live anywhere that physics will permit.