The Martian

Question: Would it really be possible to make water using the method Mark Watney uses in the movie?

Answer: According to Internet sources, yes, it's possible to do this. Here's one link with more information: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/7/9465463/the-martian-science-explained.

raywest ★

Question: The gravity acceleration on Mars is 3.71/ms2 a little more than double our Moon and approximately 1/3 of Earth gravity. For this reason every falling object or walking/running people or bouncing object should be attracted to Mars in a "slow motion" fashion. Watching the movie I didn't notice such slow-motion effect. Was that a deliberate error in order to avoid huge additional costs and probably making the movie less tedious?

Answer: Most likely, yes. Though it is worth noting that is probably also part of the reason why the number of falling objects on screen is kept to a minimum, and there is one more thing: there is much less air resistance on Mars than there is on earth because of the thin atmosphere. For a real world comparison, look at the footage of Apollo 15 where David Scott drops a hammer and a feather, and the hammer doesn't fall much slower than it would on earth.

Friso94

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Mistakes

Factual error: After Watney patches the blow out of one of the HAB's airlocks with plastic sheeting, tie down straps, and duct tape, he pressurizes the HAB and the plastic sheeting pushes out like an inflated balloon. Assuming the plastic and duct tape would hold this is correct, however the plastic would be much more taut given the pressure difference inside and outside.

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Suggested correction: The plastic would certainly be flexing in and out because of the pressure of the wind gusts during the storm. We saw earlier that the gusts of the storms were strong enough to blow a suited explorer off their feet and push them across the surface. Let's say that the HAB is pressurized as much as it can be without blowing out of the plastic, tape, and bungees sealing the airlock. A storm gust would still be able to push the flexible plastic in momentarily, and it would pop back out after the gust passed.

The movie took liberties with the physics of Mars. The gusts on Mars wouldn't be able to blow over a person or a spaceship, let alone push them across the surface, but they needed it for the plot. But using the same physics they then have wedded themselves to, it could then be strong enough to cause the plastic to flap, even though in real life it wouldn't. This is more of a deliberate mistake than a factual error since the writers certainly knew what they did didn't match reality.

Except they didn't 'wed' themselves to their fictional physics. Towards the end of the film NASA tells Watney that a flimsy plastic covering on his ascent vehicle will not be dislodged on acceleration to Martian escape velocity because the atmosphere is too thin to cause any problems. That's cheating in anyone's books.

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Quotes

Mark Watney: I admit it's fatally dangerous, but I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.

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Trivia

Trivia: When discussing "Operation Elrond", the Director says he wants his codename to be "Glorfindel." This shows he has read the book, as Glorfindel was cut out of the movie and replaced with Arwen.

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