On Mars, Acidalia Planitia – Commander Lewis, Mark Watney, Martinez, and three others are collecting dirt samples.
NASA-
Ares III- Landing site- Mission days- Sol-18. A storm is fast
approaching. Massive dust-storm. Commander Lewis stops the project.
Orders the team aboard the ship. As the six crew members try to reach
the Ares 3, Mark Watney is hit by flying debris. Presumed dead.
Five
are aboard. One chair empty, Mark’s chair. Commander Lewis orders
liftoff, thinking Mark is dead. Ares 3 rockets off Mars’ surface.
Teddy
Sanders, Director of NASA, holds a press conference. “Astronauts Beck,
Johanssen, Martinez, Vogel, and Commander Lewis reached the Mars Ascent
vehicle. Intercepted with Hermes and are on their way home safely.
Astronaut Mark Watney was struck by debris and killed.”
On Mars,
Mark Watney wakes still wearing his space suit. An antenna is protruding
from his midsection. Once inside the compound, he performs surgery on
himself to remove the thin, metal shaft, finally stapling his skin
closed.
He makes a recording that will take four years to reach Earth. He will be dead in a few months, maybe sooner.
Sol
21- His mission, grow three years-worth of food for himself on a
planet where nothing grows. Luckly he’s a botanists. He can stretch the
available food for nearly a year.
- Mark builds a hot house and garden
Using his own feces and urine, he makes fertilizer and begins the seeding process. Builds a hot house and plants potatoes.”Sol 36- “Hello there.” Success! Mark’s first potato plants are growing.
On
Earth, Teddy Sanders, Director of Nasa. Johnson Space Center, Houston
Texas. Vincent Kapoor- Director of Mars Missions, Nasa. Vincent wants to
send Ares 6 to Mars to recover Mark’s body and other things. He talks
to Teddy about the new mission.
Mission Control, Nasa. Johnson
Space Center, Houston Texas. Mindy Park, satellite communications, Nasa.
She receives a message from Vincent Kapoor. By photos, they see the
solar panels have been cleaned. Rover 2 has been moved on Mars. They
know Mark is alive.
- Schiaparelli Crater
On
Mars, Mark makes a plan. The next Nasa mission will be Ares 4 landing
at Schiaparelli Crater, 3200 kilometers away, in 4 years.On Earth, the media are now aware that Mark is alive.
With one working Rover, Rover 2, it goes 35 kilometers before needing to recharge at the Hab. Problem A.
Problem
B, the journey will take 50 days to complete. He needs to live inside
the Rover 2 with marginal life support, the size of a small van.
Mark
figures a solution to his heating problem inside the Rover. To run the
heater uses too much battery power. He digs up the Radioisotope of
Plutonium. And puts the decaying radioactive isotobe behind himself in
the Rover. It generates heat.
Teddy Sanders wants a pre-supply
ship built in 3 months, impossible, and sent to Mars, nine more months.
He will find the money for the overtime.
Mark grew 400 healthy
potato plants. The smaller, he will reseed, the larger, he will eat. All
natural, organic, Martian-grown potatoes.
- Mark finds the Pathfinder
Vincent Kapoor knows where Mark is going in the Rover 2. He flies to, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Pasadera, California.The crashed Pathfinder on Mars. Mark found it.
At
the lab, everyone looks at the replica of the Pathfinder. Both
Pathfinders go online. Mark communicates with Nasa, with “Yes” or “No”
signs. Nasa points the camera to the signs.
- NASA communicates by pointing to signs
Mark
eats the first potatoes, steamy hot, fully cooked, with ketchup. He
will communicate in hexadecimals. Their communication quickly improves,
thanks to the smart people of Nasa.Mark wants his crew informed that he’s alive.
The Hermes - 4 months since Mars departure.
Mitch Henderson sends a video to the Hermes crew. Mark Watney is still alive. They’ve known for two months, kept it from them.
Technically
Mark has colonized Mars according to The University of Chicago, his
alma mater. He has grown food, that’s why. He learns through emails.
There’s
an explosion on Mars. His potato plants are destroyed. Space suit is
damaged. He has more suits. Greenhouse is destroyed.
Mark chats, via Email, with his crew aboard the Hermes.
Using duct tape and plastic, Mark repairs the greenhouse, sort of.
Nasa skips safety to rush the probe. The inspections are cancelled, Teddy’s orders.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Iris Probe. 4 weeks later- Loading the probe.
Cape Canaveral- Iris Probe is launched. Iris blew apart in the sky shortly after takeoff.
The Chinese Space Agency agrees to help. They are building another Iris probe in 28 days.
- Rich Purnell
Pleiades NASA Advanced Supercomputer. Rich Purnell works Astrodynamics, knows how to save Mark Watney. Project Elrond?Rich
tells Nasa his plan. To re-deploy the Hermes around the Earth and back
to Mars. Pick up a care package when rounding earth. Dump it on Mars.
They will need to use the Taiyang Shen.
The plan is sent to the
crew aboard the Hermes. Total of over 900 days in space. They agree to
go back for their shipmate, then never fly again.
NASA is in the
dark so far, doesn’t know the mission. Teddy Sanders, Director of NASA,
wants Mitch Henderson’s resignation when this is over. “Now, let’s go
get our astronaut.”
The plan, Mark will use the MAV from Ares 4 at
Schiaparelli Crater, placed there by NASA 3 years ago, just waiting.
Use that to go into orbit just as the Hermes is passing and they will
catch him in space.
On Earth, the second Iris probe launches aboard a rocket ship from China.
- The Hermes
The Hermes crew picks up the Iris probe, supply capsule, as it circles Earth. Next stop for Hermes and crew, Mars.7
months later, Mark has lost a lot of body mass due to the reduced
calorie rations, grown a beard. Goes by the name, Captain Blondbeard.
Mars is technically under maritime law.
His daily schedule,
journey until the batteries are low in the Rover 2, sleep as the solar
panels recharge the batteries. On his way to Schiaparelli Crater.
NASA’s
plan is to reduce the weight of the MAV, Mars Ascent Vehicle, at the
crater. Once there, Mark begins removing the parts as instructed. Then
covers the spacecraft with a tarp, also as NASA brains requested.
The crew aboard the Hermes prepares for the pickup as they approach Mars.
At
NASA, Vincent Kapoor explains, they are 12 light-minutes away from
Earth. It takes 24 minutes for a signal to reach earth and back if they
have a question. The crew is effectively on their own with this mission.
On Mars, Mark decides it’s time for a shave and a haircut.
- MAV, Mars Ascent Vehicle
As
the Hermes crew prepares to launch the Mars MAV, inside the spacecraft,
Mark becomes emotional to the point of tears. Commander Lewis and her
crew will fly Mark to their ship. Mark needs only to buckle-up and hold
on.Lewis gives the order. The MAV lifts off from Mars in a blaze of fire, straight up!
Mark passes out from pulling 12 gees.
Commander
Lewis advises Houston, they are going to deliberately breach the VAL to
produce a reverse thrust. They need the push to catch the MAV, it’s off
course.
After the explosion, they’re still 312 meters away from
the MAV. In a space chair, strapped to the Hermes, Lewis goes after
Mark.
- Commander Lewis in the space chair
Her strap isn’t long enough. She can’t reach the MAV.Mark
rips a hole in the palm of his space suit. Acting like Iron Man, using
escaping oxygen for propulsion, he haphazardly flies toward Lewis.
His aim is off, but he grabs her strap.
“Hold on Mark!” she yells pulling the strap, pulling him closer. She grabs him.
The crew of the Hermes reels Lewis and Mark toward their ship.
Lewis reports, “Houston, this is Hermes actual. We got him. Watney is secure.”
Earth is in celebration!
Lewis, “Houston, six crew safely aboard.”
- Ares 5
Months
later on Earth, Mark is an instructor at NASA. He’s teaching his first
class, talking about his experiences on Mars, to a full class of in awe
cadets.NASA prepares for the Ares 5 mission using the Hermes, 414 days in space.
Ares 5 lifts off, not Lewis, on its way to Mars from Cape Canaveral, with the help of the Chinese Space Program.
The End.
Due
to my fascination with astronomy and space, I found this movie to be
very entertaining and interesting. For me, the filming was very
believable. It looked like Mars.
The plot line was excellent. I’m
so glad Lewis and her crew brought Mark back to Earth safely after
leaving him on Mars in the beginning.
My rating: 5 stars
May good fortune guide your path.
J.A. Ireland
