Inside the Spaceflight of 'The Martian'

benonemusic writes: Science writer Michael Greshko partnered with a team of scientists and engineers to explore the spacecraft and mission plans in The Martian (novel and movie), down to the rescue plan itself. Incorporating the help of Andy Weir, the novel's author, he comes up with a calendar of events for The Martian, explores the hazards of going back to save Mark Watney, and explains how a real world interplanetary spacecraft would pull off a rescue maneuver.

Comments

Are and storms that fierce on Mars?

[peter303]

I know they have sandstorms, sometimes dense enough to hide the surface. But with an atmosphere that never exceeds 2% the density of Earth's, can it blow people down and topple spaceships?

Re:Are and storms that fierce on Mars?

[ClickOnThis]

I know they have sandstorms, sometimes dense enough to hide the surface. But with an atmosphere that never exceeds 2% the density of Earth's, can it blow people down and topple spaceships?

The short answer is no.

Re:Are and storms that fierce on Mars?

[SharpFang]

Andy Weir explained in one of the interviews that it was the only point where he used his artistic license against hard science. "I wanted Mars to deliver the first punch". He said he could have done this differently, but he wanted this to be Nature's fault, not a human shortcoming.

He stayed true to science best to his ability the rest of the time. Not that he didn't make any mistakes - he made quite a few, but none of them were intentional violations, just his lack of universal knowledge - or developments that happened after he wrote the book.

To name a few:
- water content in soil, making Hydrazine burning moot.
- Chlorides content in soil, making it totally unsuitable for plants and harmful to health, unless purified.
- raw potatoes being merely "awful" while in reality they are quite poisonous.
- hydrazine reaction heat being neglected (someone calculated it would heat up the Hab to 400C).
- space radiation being handwaved away by "Hab is radiation-proof" while it's an inflatable structure.

Re:Are and storms that fierce on Mars?

[Irate Engineer]

- raw potatoes being merely "awful" while in reality they are quite poisonous.

Wow, they sell 5 lb bags of raw potatoes in the store! What a reckless thing to do! Amazing the personal injury lawyers haven't jumped on that!

Seriously, properly grown potatoes are harmless, raw or cooked. However, being nightshades, if potatoes are not hilled properly the ones near the soil surface that are exposed to sunlight will turn green and produce solanine, a glycoakaloid poison. I grow potatoes in my garden and just make sure to toss any potatoes that have any green on them.

Fresh young potatoes from the garden, sliced thin and sprinkled with a little sea salt are pretty darned tasty, but eating nothing but potatoes would start to suck ass pretty quickly.