How about this one? About two seconds Googling.
As for why the movie has a storm too:
Rather than relying on a quote, here’s the man himself:
Go to 39:50 and he says exactly what I posted above.
Missed the edit window: Of course it is perfectly plausible he said both things. We humans are not terrible consistent.
Both are probably true. He originally planned the engine test, opted to change to the sandstorm for dramatic purposes, but now feels it was a mistake.
I agree with him; it weakens the book because even readers less-knowledgeable about science will find it decidedly odd that the chances of another punishing-winds storm is never, ever mentioned in the book. (All there is, is the chance of a sunlight-blocking storm.)
I just read the book, and found it highly entertaining. But at the risk of offending many–this book is beloved–I can’t help pointing out what seem to me to be fairly gigantic plot holes:
[SPOILER]
***In the first quarter of the book, roughly, Watney’s thoughts and actions center on the goal of making the epic and wildly-dangerous journey to the Ares 4 site, so that he can be picked up by the Ares 4 crew when they arrive, years hence. It NEVER occurs to him that any other option is possible–because it never occurs to him that NASA will know he’s alive, until that years-in-the-future moment when Ares 4 arrives. We are asked to believe that either Watney didn’t realize that images of Mars were being continuously sent to Earth by satellites, or that Watney assumed that no images of the Ares 3 area would ever be looked at. Or that he had no idea that anything he could do would show up on the images (that is, that he was clueless about the resolution of the images).
All these are ridiculously implausible. The ‘Watney assumes no one can figure out he’s alive until Ares 4 arrives’ contrivance is purely there to create suspense and drama (against all odds, a lowly tech realizes that WATNEY IS ALIVE!!1!!!1)
***The plot establishes that the series of Mars landings are supported by many–14–pre-landing, unmanned missions that deliver the supplies needed to sustain the crews–missions that take place over a swath of time. This makes it clear that the safest (by far) way to get Watney back home safely, is to divert some planned unmanned supply missions to dump their contents nearer Ares 3 (where Watney is relatively safe in his Hab), diverting them from near the planned Ares 4 site, many kilometers away. This is made explicit in the discussion of the first IRIS launch.
So why is this option–keep Watney fed and supplied via unmanned ‘deliveries’ so that he’ll live until Ares 4 lands–abandoned so quickly, in favor of the massively-dangerous decision to keep Ares 3 going for a year longer than its physical components will be safe? Not to mention the danger in making Watney travel to the Ares 4 site?
If Weir had said “all fourteen supply missions for Ares 4 have already launched and can’t be diverted,” then…it wouldn’t make much sense, but at least readers wouldn’t be asking themselves “why don’t they divert supplies to Watney?”
Yes, going for the ‘divert supplies to Watney, then pick him up when Ares 4 lands’ option would have meant, perhaps, that the planned Ares 4 mission would not be able to do the science it was designed to do–and even could have meant bumping one of the astronauts, so that bringing Watney back would be easier and safer. Why was disappointing an astronaut so unthinkable, given the severe hazards imposed on the Ares 3 people (including Watney) by the ‘return of Ares 3’ plan?
With our current technology we can get a rocket to Mars in six months–and there’s a lot of talk about a new one that can get there in only 39 days. Yes, the rocket has to be built and supplied, and that takes time. But in this book’s world, ‘rockets to Mars’ is an ongoing endeavor–again, FOURTEEN supply missions are routine for each of the Ares missions. Is it plausible that ALL FOURTEEN of the Ares 4 had already launched (and thus couldn’t be diverted) so soon after Ares 3 landed?
Weir didn’t establish that. He didn’t establish that it was really impossible to send Watney any supplies. I realize he was trying to imply that with the failure of the IRIS mission (really? protein bars turning to sludge? they had no idea that would happen?), and the resort to a Chinese launch. But in a world he created-- a world in which an ongoing Mars program had unmanned missions in such large numbers (for five Ares missions, that’s at least SEVENTY launches in the works within a few years!)–he really didn’t set up “the best chance to save Watney is to make him travel 3200 kilometers in dangerous conditions.”
Yes, again: I realize that it was the Ares 3 crew itself that imposed the dangers on themselves (and on Watney, by forcing him to journey to the 4 site). But why did no one at NASA say ‘we have time to divert some of the 14 unmanned Ares-4-supply missions, and even some of the planned Ares 5 supply missions, so they’ll land closer to Watney, and he can live on what we’ll send until Ares 4 lands’…?? The answer, obviously, is that if the Ares 3 crew knew that, they would have said ‘thank Rich Purnell, but Watney will have a better chance by waiting for the Ares 4.’
In other words, to make the plot work, the characters had to be stupid.[/SPOILER]
What I’m saying is that these things come off as plot contrivances of an unappealing sort.
But I guess the level of starvation for pure science fiction is high enough that a lot of people are willing to overlook such bad (plot) engineering. (Sorry, had to say it.)
You have some valid points.
Okay, here Weir is relying on most of the audience’s lack of information. I suppose it could be forgiven by a couple of points. First, Watney is rather busy thinking up how to stay alive, he can be forgiven for not remembering details of satellite imagery. Second, without any way of being contacted by anyone else, he has no way of knowing what they know. Sure, he could set up a bright beacon (hab cloth/rocks) or some other signal, but without any means to relay plans to him, he has to plan as if he is on his own. Up until a cargo pod lands near him, at any rate.
[spoiler]The problem you seem to be forgetting is that Watney’s food supply will run out prior to any resupply rocket having a chance to arrive. It is only by virtue of growing potatoes that he has a chance to make it that long, and then the hab failure ruins that and puts him on a shorter timetable again. They have no time to build another launcher or delivery vehicle in the time window to allow it to get there before he runs out of food. That’s why they start planning the really cheap lithobraked (i.e. crashlanded) resupply of protein bars.
Option A: rush like hell to make a food delivery crash lander that consists of protein mush that he somehow will still be able to eat. If that one gets there, then they’ll have time for more resupply vehicles to follow.
Option B: Redirect the orbital transfer vehicle that still has some velocity and send it now instead of later on a return to Mars trajectory for recovery.
Option B is taken by the astronauts in the vehicle, forcing that result. Option A is only safer if that first food delivery works, and that is not very certain. They already had one launch failure due to rushing.
Weir does indeed suppose that the idea of truncating Ares 4 instead of making it a rescue and return mission is ridiculous to NASA. That part is questionable to say the least, but the premise he starts with is that NASA wants a plan that picks him up, and then retain the full Ares 4 mission. Of course that changes after the launch failure.
The other challenge is how to get Watney from Ares 3 site to Ares 4. The touchdown/shuttle method is crazy bad, but is necessitated by the fact that the return vehicle is already on Mars. They can’t just land at Ares 3, because the return vehicle is at Ares 4, and that is what drives the need to ultimately get there.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Watney barely had food to last until the first one could get there on a rushed timetable. They were drastically rushing the next resupply, which means none of the other 13 missions are anywhere near far enough along to matter. And then the launch failure, and then the Hab failure. If he’s out of food before the rushed one can make it, any later resupplies will be even more too late.
Maybe what’s throwing you is overestimating their timetable. It appears they ramp the resupply missions as the mission launch gets closer, so they haven’t started working on most of the launches at all. There’s only one that is close, and that one is the one they rush and blow up. Nothing else is far enough along to do any good.
[/spoiler]
I think that’s your biggest complaint, and I think it was adequately explained, you just missed it somehow.
I think you are wrong.
On the contrary, he assumed that they *would *be looking at the images, he depended on it. He moved rocks on the ground to spell out messages. He went to collect the old probe to allow them to speak to him. That depends on them seeing him alive.
If that were possible, it would feed him for a while. But he has to go to the Aries 4 site, because that is where the launch vehicle is. They can’t pick him up at the Aries 3 site. It simply isn’t possible.
It’s not just that, there is a very specific launch window for every mission, where Earth and Mars are in optimum position for the shortest possible journey. If you miss the window you have to wait many moths for the next one. It possible that all the planned supply rockets aren’t due to be launched for a couple of years, and are nowhere near ready to use yet.
Stuff in reply to Peter Morris, under the spoiler tags:
If you look at the book again, you’ll see that Watney made no rock messages during the first quarter (or so–the period during which Watney assumed no one would know he was alive until the Ares 4 arrived) of the book—which was the period about which I was saying ‘this is contrived and implausible.’
So ‘he made rock messages’ is not a counter to my argument about that first large chunk of the book.
It’s true that the Ares 3 can’t pick Watney up at the Ares 3 site, but that’s not what I was discussing. I was discussing the Ares 4 (which, at four years out, could presumably be made to land pretty much anywhere that meet the ‘safe’ criteria–such as ‘fairly near the Ares 3 site.’)
The information I’m seeing says that for a minimum-energy launch you would have to wait as much as two years and two months–but not more. For a launch that could consume more energy, you wouldn’t have to wait that long.
Irishman, my apologies, but given the time required to make these posts properly spoiler-tagged and my wish to answer you fully, I won’t get to that reply until tomorrow. (Though some of your points are answered in this post.)
Okay, just a quick pass: No, I’m not forgetting about the food-supply issue. What I’m saying is that given the book’s premise–that ‘missions to Mars’ are on ongoing endeavor, with many (dozens!) of launches of unmanned supply craft being sent within a relatively small number of years–given that premise, the idea that there could be only [spoiler] *one or two *(with the help of China) attempts to supply Watney with additional food, doesn’t hold up. It’s basically hand-waved: some characters are distraught that the Iris protein-bar fiasco occurred, and we take that to mean that no other launches are possible.
Maybe some discussion along the lines of “this is a really unusual astronomical period during which we can’t launch any of the other dozen or better unmanned supply missions that are already lined up and underway for the Ares 4 and the Ares 5 after it, even if we made a massive effort to move them up on the calendar and get the supply payload ready to go in weeks instead of the usual months” etc…maybe that would have helped. As it was, those of us who noticed the fact that Weir established in his fictional world, an ongoing program that included dozens of launches, would have been less bothered by the ‘oh no, Iris failed, so we can’t supply Watney with enough food to last until Ares 4 lands’ development.[/SPOILER]
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3m34oc/i_am_andy_weir_author_of_the_martian_ama/
Good stuff. Seems like a nice guy, too.
My understanding was that
[spoiler]Watney had no reason to believe that NASA would even be monitoring the Ares 3 site after the mission was scrubbed and he was believed dead. Indeed Kapoor had to convince Sanders to give him satellite time to check the Ares 3 site for salvage. Sanders had already written Ares 3 off as a complete loss and didn’t want to waste expensive satellite time on it, not to mention wanting to avoid having to publish any images of Watney’s corpse. Even if it’s not true to what NASA would really do, it’s not a huge stretch that this was standard procedure in their universe and Watney knew it.
Sure, I also expected him to try to make at least a simple message on the off chance that someone was looking, but it’s also believable that he would focus his efforts into his best shot for survival: growing sufficient food to survive to Ares 4, which was the next time he was sure that they were coming back.[/spoiler]
Still, YMMV, and I can understand how that would disrupt one’s suspension of disbelief.
You’re missing a point that Ares 4 has *already *landed - at least several of the 14 supply rockets have - and they landed a long way from Watney. The launch vehicle that Watney needs is already in position and can’t be moved. He has to go to it.
Weren’t most of the early supply missions to each site mainly hardware that could sit on the surface for a time. It’s possible food wouldn’t be in any of the supply missions currently going to the Ares 4 site which is what Watney really needed most. And the radios were probably already at Ares 4 in the MAV so there may not have been anything useful on the way. You’re still looking at a year minimum then to get supplies to him.
According to the book, there’s nothing at the Ares 4 site other than the MAV which the Ares 3 crew remotely landed from orbit before they descended. The MAV needs to be there longer so it can make fuel from the Martian atmosphere. Presupplies will be launched ahead of the Ares 4 crew but not four years ahead.
I thought they laid out the sequence pretty clearly.
[Spoiler] Weir proposes that it will resemble current NASA processes, that these will be largely sequential. Landers and launchers may be parallel, but they merge at some point, and the launcher assembly flow may have break points where one moves far enough the next can begin, but the next one will necessarily be a lot behind. The launches are stovepiped, I.e. one long sequence with little redundancy.
You think they will be close enough together that even if the first is not quite ready, another will be right behind it almost ready as well. This doesn’t match NASA history.
Thus is very much in line with any process where you don’t anticipate needing extras at a moments notice. The process is stovepiped, where they are sequential units.
Keep in mind the crew vehicle has ion drive, but the resupply vehicles use chemical rockets. They are slower to travel, and that constrains the schedule. [/Spoiler]
*I can’t go verify, I ordered the book from the library, so it would take a while to get it again.
Actually, they are in the middle of the optimum time, as this is nominally the beginning of surface ops.
Strictly speaking, you probably have a point. It would be sensible to be 2 or 3 vehicles ahead of need, to protect for run of the mill delays at any point. Practically, experience hasn’t borne that it for NASA.
Correct.
It’s established that the MAV is already landed at the Ares 4 site - their pilot did it before they landed. The MAV is the only return to orbit vehicle, which is why
they purpose the crazy land at Ares 3, then hop to Ares 4
plan.
Yes.
I’m not really seeing the flaw in all that. Yeah, NASA is building a lot of rockets, but as soon as the rockets are finished, they use them. They’re not stockpiling them. They build one, launch it, then build the next. That’s how it works currently - NASA doesn’t have a bunch of booster rockets sitting in a warehouse that they dust off when they’re ready to throw another robot at Pluto. The Martian does not seem set so far in the future that this model must have changed by then. This isn’t a fully mature space industry, this is basically the Martian version of the Apollo program.
Finished this book today and really liked it. I didn’t pick up any indications at all in the book that he was black, but I admit the knowledge that Matt Damon was going to play the protagonist onscreen may have influenced that. But I don’t think so. There really was no indication, and the book is fresh in my mind.
Can’t wait for the movie. Hearing good things about it already. Opens in Bangkok next week just like in the US, but I may have to wait for the wife to get less busy.
The flight to deliver those supplies was not a normal trajectory. This was a special, high energy rocket, probably 2 or 3 upper stages fueled with liquid hydrogen, intended for another mission. There are specific times when you get an efficient transfer, and all the other times a mission to Mars needs a huge amount more propellant to make it at all.
They couldn’t launch one of the other rockets they had because it lacked the dV to make it to Mars at all.
In the book, the only rocket in the solar system that isn’t limited by chemistry - liquid hydrogen/oxygen being the best you can practically do - is the Hermes…
I don’t think that’s quite true. Yes, the part about Hermes being ion drive and the others being chemical propellants is true. Yes, there are low energy routes (Hohmann transfers) and higher energy routes.
The rockets themselves consist of launchers to orbit and then the delivery vehicles that make the trip. The delivery vehicle was the payload part they were simplifying by using the existing space vehicle and slapping a landing stage onto. That collective unit was the payload they strapped to the rocket that was being prepped for launching the telescope payload.
I wouldn’t mind someone with access to the book checking this.
From page 81…
[spoiler]“What about an Ares 4 presupply?” said Teddy. “Land it at Ares 3 instead.”
“That’s what we’re thinking, yeah,” Venkat confirmed. “Problem is, the original plan was to launch presupplies a year from now. They’re not ready yet.
“It takes eight months to get a probe to Mars in the best of times. The positions of Earth and Mars right now…it’s not the best of times. We figure we can get there in nine months. Presuming he’s rationing his food, he’s got enough to last three hundred and fifty more days. That means we need to build a presupply in three months. JPL hasn’t even started yet.”
“That’ll be tight,” Bruce said. “Making a presupply is a six-month process. We’re set up to pipeline a bunch of them at once, not to make one in a hurry.”
“Sorry, Bruce,” Teddy said. “I know we’re asking a lot, but you have to find a way.”
“We’ll find a way,” Bruce said. “But the OT alone will be a nightmare.”
“Get started. I’ll find you the money.”
“There’s also the booster,” Venkat said. “The only way to get a probe to Mars with the planets in their current positions is to spend a butt-load of fuel. We only have one booster capable of doing that. The Delta IX that’s on the pad right now for the EagleEye 3 Saturn probe. We’ll have to steal that. I talked to ULA, and they just can’t make another booster in time.”
[/spoiler]