Question: Mark says he will have to get to the crater, which is 3200 kilometers away. Mark says he has one working rover, designed to go a max distance of 35 kilometers, before the battery has to be recharged at the hab. During the nighttime scene, he says he has doubled his battery by scavenging Rover 1, but if he uses the heater he will burn through half his battery everyday. I did some math, and worked out that the max distance his rover would be able to go without using the heater would only be about 140 kilometers. How would he travel 3200 kilometers to get to the crater?
raywest
2nd Aug 2018
The Martian (2015)
Answer: He wouldn't need to use the heater because he salvaged the Radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) and this also saves his power.
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Answer: Mark says he has 1 Rover that can travel 35km before recharging. He estimated he would need to travel for 50 days to reach the Ares IV site (down to approximately 22 days when not using the heater, as per your maths). Mark is shown using the solar panels (stolen from the Hab) to recharge the Rover during his journey. He drives for 4 hours before noon, waits 13 hours for the Rover to recharge to full and then starts driving again.
What does 22 days per my maths mean? I'm autistic.
"Per your maths" means according to how you calculated the math, the answer is 22 days.
raywest ★