Thoughts on mixing science and fiction – The Martian · 8:59pm Oct 20th, 2015
The film The Martian has been a real hit for NASA public relations, science communicators, and geek bloggers worldwide. The story of how astronaut Mark Watney, stranded on the Red Planet, survives by overcoming a series of science problems provides an ideal opportunity to talk about all sort of physics, chemistry, biology and space tech. From discussing the inaccuracies in the film or arguing about whether the given solutions were really the right ones, to listing the problems which were not addressed, or just using it as a newstag to talk about your own projects.
It has had the right effect on younger viewers—I read a nice tweet from one of my colleagues saying that it had inspired her children to attack their maths homework with new enthusiasm. Take note kids: pay attention in class—you never know when you might need to science the shit out of something.
The film is impressive in the attention to the technical details. Outlining the plans for manoeuvring spacecraft, growing food in artificial soil made by mixing rock dust with human excrement, hacking an old space probe to establish communication with Earth. A lot of it is pretty far fetched, but all based on real science, and—mostly—within the realm of possibility. The aim is not to tell a realistic story, but to narrate an epic space adventure, but still keep the science correct. The game is: create a problem for the character, have him find a scientifically accurate solution to the problem, then move up to the next level, and repeat. It escalates with the problems increasing at a rate which makes the fact that this is fiction ever more apparent, but impressively, the solutions never seem too contrived. This is not a new idea—it reminded me of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1874), which is basically about a group of 19th Century engineers trying to science their way off a Pacific island—but it is the best use of this trope I have seen.
The film was based on the book by Andy Weir. Great to learn that he is one of us! That is, he was a computer programmer and wannabe author, who wrote the book for fun, posting chapters on the internet. (He has also written fanfiction.) But The Martian went on to hit the New York Times bestsellers list. Always nice to hear about internet fiction geeks making it big time.
The few bits where The Martian disappoints is where Weir was compromising his Scientific Accuracy rule to meet some other ideas about How To Write A Story. The top inaccuracy (pointed out by all bloggers) is that the film opens with a violent storm hitting the Mars base. The mega-destructive scene portrayed on screen seems a pretty dumb opening for a film set on a planet with a surface atmospheric pressure of just 6mbar. Could Weir not have come up with a better opening? Apparently, yes he could, but opted for the unrealistically heavy weather:
"I had an alternate beginning with an engine failure ... but in a man versus nature story, I wanted nature to get in the first shot."
Man versus nature? Sounds to me like he was paying too much attention to conflict-obsessed creative writing manuals. That may be good advice if you want to write that sort of story, but this one deserved better. Listen to your science teacher before your English teacher. But that's my opinion. No doubt other viewers will say the film had a great opening to set the scene of an explorer battling the forces of nature, but what let down by too much technical detail in the middle and end.
And given the success of the book and film, maybe Weir knew what he was doing.
I loved that movie. It's rare to see science used accurately or positively in movies. One that strives for both is always a treat.
But yeah, when scientific accuracy is your goal, the event that gets the plot rolling shouldn't be one of the biggest gaffes.
Ill have to dig right back into my archive for the designs of equipment and the maths for how to blend algae, worm slime and sand to put soil on a desert. Im pretty sure that was a school problem, maybe due to encroaching deserts, lunar cropping and mars colonists.
I still hate how theres no communication, when they say Jodrel Bank can pick up a non directional cell phone from Mars, and Aricebo is sensitive enough to pick it up from jupiter. I mean, when he said potatoes, I though he was going to build a multiwatt arc transmitter and blast Morse code through orbiting sensors at least.
You need 6 volts that I know of to make an arc, that I got by shorting out the terminals of a 6 volt laturn battery with a 0.5mm pencil lead. warning it glows red, and WILL vapourise a chunk out of you if you touch it.
Im very suprised he would manage to redo Patfinder. It uses a totally alien architecture and instruction set to all modern systems, the same CPU at the Playstation 2 I think. Curiosity uses the same CPU as Playstation 3, but without the SPE, Cell extensions? the OS is totally different to Wintel as well.
the Martian uses Hydrogen being sent, which means cryogenics, landed weight etc, but as more water is found, things get a lot easier, I hope that the Water, CO2, Methane, Oxygen pressure, temperature, phase change loop values overlap enough to build a cooling cascade that can be made out of lightweight flexible inflatable piping instead of heavy steels etc.
for energy storage, why not CO2 tanks? if you store it as a liquid you can keep the pressure variation extremely low,a nd so greatly limi the cycle fatigue?
With airlocks, still working on that, but news that water ice stops evapourating at 170k in a vaccuum really makes things easier. As in the water flush will also pick up dust, with further research into using non mechanical cyclonic flltering etc.
theres a lovely old design for a fluid pump that Ive seen in several places, but the companies that have used it over the decades keep abusing the patent system to prevent its widespread and efficincy improving use. That of the Rim Driven Thruster, or hubless turbine. If one university experiemnt is correct, it can improve the performance of a rocket engine by 40%, meaning that NASA could get Hydrogen performance out of Diesel, and Air Breathing of Mach 10. that is, 6 times the output of a SSME at half orbital velocity, for a tenth the fuel tank.
well, if NASA isnt intrested, Im sure theres others looking at the designs and testing them and patenting them to prevent their use.
Wish I couldve got the thing prototyped when I saw it back in the 80s now, Airbreathing SSTOs wouldve been commonplace. And it also has uses in ion, plasma and solar pumped drive systems.
I really like The Martian. It was a whole list, just like Apollo 13, of what they expect to be doing by then, and as science fiction says, its What If. we cut corners and short change and cheap off all this way. I mean, how much does it cost to add a laser pen to a suit with a DVD chip for orbital high speed data transfers and locations? I notice the current record for a lighting fixture LED is 500 gigabaud. the longer the range, the slower, so how far can you get using 1 symbol per second Morse? given Voyager is 30 bits a second I believe?
I wonder just if the nod to Clarke, 2001, Earthlight, was accidental or deliberate. Right at the beginning of the movie, theres a hole in a suit. the person doesnt die instantly by their body exploding, despite most everything Hollywood likes it to happen.
Im waiting to see what teh results of the Space Pi is, how long it lasts, performance etc. Be intresting spewing a thousand of those to float along the gravity tramlines, mapping the solar system. Still, need far more to set up a cell phone network even through the inner solar system, so we will just have to go back to the old 80s analog phase array sheets instead. Given NASA doesnt seem t want to use the new digital printed phase arrays, never mind CalTech optical phase array emmiter.
Space is big, nasty, vicious, and hates accountants with a vengence. If you want to go their, dont forget your CRT degauss coil for your plasma radiation shield, and your water tanks for mass shielding, thermal control and reaction mass for orientation and propulsion.
Better still, dont forget the Japanese module on the ISS with the remote control assembly robot arms, so you can launch your ship in chunks and not just bolt it together, but inflate the fuel tanks and print low stress structural parts in place. Now you can send all your delicate stuff up in the seat reserved for Joe Pillow, insted of building it for rigid bolted launch, and test and repair before assembly and on orbit launch.
Look at The Martian as a warning. We have got better, we have had better, but this is all we are going to end up with due to politics and microcent costing if someone else doent do a better job first.
Im still waitng for Ozzy to build the first wormhole generator so he can be stood there waiting for the long duration travelers.
Well, I read the book, now to get round to watching the movie. So, I apologise if things are different in the movie I havent seen yet.
Im useless at writing stuff.
I haven't seen The Martian, though from the sounds of it, I think I probably should, however, I thought Mars did have a tendency towards tremendous dust storms.
Or are they just bigger than they are violent?
And yet, there are voters who believe this was a documentary...
Haven't seen The Martian, but it sounds good. The description kind of reminds me of The Core, which is more in the realm of science fiction, but still inspiring in that the protagonists use (quasi) scientific principles to solve their problems. Unobtainium is just so cool.
Sounds like the writer of The Martian should have leaned more toward Cast Away. But maybe there was a "strong suggestion" by the producers to make it 20% cooler or something. One can never tell.
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If anything, Musk might kickstart the Mars program.
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If you can land the Falcon 9, with all its weight at teh bottom and the massive wind reactive torqing flag on top, you can land anything, anywhere. Its immensely unstable and extremely difficult to correct. The Curiosity, Crane lander method was the vastly more stable variation, as long as you remmeberd th lesson of Clarke, A Meeting With Medusa, and took great care of resonance and pendulum effects.
I saw the Martian too. You already read me BlogPost about it.
Holy cow, Andy Weir?! I had no idea The Martian was his baby. I used to read Casey & Andy plus his short fiction years ago. Now he's famous.
The Martian is also a wonderful example of how to adapt a book into a movie.
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Yes, there are dust storms. But it's hard to imagine them destroying satellite dishes and other equipment as portrayed in the film. I was thinking the same way when I read the blog posts explaining this. After watching the film, I understood it.
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Your post reminded me that I needed to go and see it
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My BlogPost will make you sad. Although, I should get back to My Little Economy about Radix-Economy:
As you may remember, My Little Economy wrote stories about Economics. Economics is where psychology and mathematics collide with psychology, but in the story with the dragon, My Little Economy mentions 4-Color Theory. In a comment, I mentioned that new insertions are impossible and that one needs 5 colors. I gave the example of 2 colors in 1-D:
It only takes only 2 colors to color a line, but with only 2 colors, insertions are impossible. With 3 colors, one can easily insert a different color between 2 other colors. Then, I asked whether the author can figure out the best way to divide decimal currency into denominations and why. Then all of the stories and blogs disappeared. I figured that My Little Economy quit, but My Little Economy is back. I should give the answer and explain why in a BlogPost in a BlogPost PM a link to My little Economy.
Your saying that my comment reminded you to read my BlogPost, which in turn, reminds me that I have to get back to My Little Economy.
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I wrote the BlogPost about Radix-Economy and Denominations of currency:
Radix-Economy & Denominations Of Currency
3484937 No! Don't make that comparison. Please. Just don't.
The Martian is an almost completely scientifically correct story that exaggerates a little (much) to set up the initial conflict.
The Core is a travesty against science. Believe me when I say that Unobtainium is literally the movie's smallest problem.
It repeatedly confuses earth's magnetic field with the ozone hole, and microwaves with ion storms, every single of the movie's, problems, symptoms, solution attempts and solutions is complete and utterly impossible in reality.
Each and every scientific idea mentioned in it has either major misinterpretation, or is an outright fabrication.
The Core actually made it to the top spot of the list of insultingly bad movie physics.
It even beat Armageddon, and the Nasa has found more scientific possibilities in that one than it has minutes!
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I know. The only point I was trying to make is that The Core made science look cool, like Star Trek did back in the day. Even bogus science can be inspirational, if misleading.
Though it may be a bit of a letdown when one learns that applying pressure to a material will never make it create energy.
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I'm absolutely certain that The Core is a deliberately dumb movie, that the people making it knew exactly what they were doing when they threw in all the crazy bad science, and laughed all the way. You don't name your McGuffin material unobtainium by accident! And then there's the sublimely stupid scene where the scientists demonstrate the effect of a solar flare on magnetic-field stripped Earth by scorching an apple with a spraycan flamethrower.
So, yeah. It's a movie with bogus science, but I don't think it's hostile, or even indifferent, to science like many movies are. Nowhere comparable to The Martian, but a lot better and more fun than you'd think!