Corrected entry: Several times in the film it is mentioned that the rig is on the ocean floor some seventeen hundred feet below the surface. Yet Lindsy swims without any protection from the wrecked submersible to the rig, and Bud and others swim from one module to another. The absolute maximum depth the unprotected human body can stand is less than six hundred feet, and that is in the case of superfit divers who spend years training for their record dives (and some die trying). At seventeen hundred feet the water pressure would crush an unprotected human being like a schnitzel.
Aerinah
22nd Jul 2004
The Abyss (1989)
Correction: For a moon pool to work, the pressure inside of the underwater habitat the pressure inside would have to be equal to the water pressure outside. 1700' would be 518 meters underwater, with a air pressure of nearly 53 times that of the surface. FYI The deepest scuba dive to date was 332.35 m. With scuba divers, you start to be at risk of oxygen toxicity at 6-7 atmospheres and symptoms increasing the longer the exposure. So the grew of the underwater habitat would have all died from oxygen toxicity pretty quickly, let alone the effect of nitrogen at 53 atmospheres on the body.
You're right that compressing normal atmosphere like that would cause problems with oxygen and nitrogen, but they're not breathing highly compressed normal air. When you go that deep, you breathe a special mix that has a much lower percentage of oxygen and nitrogen. Typically, helium is added since it is inert. Look up heliox and triox.
If they were all breathing the oxygen/helium mix used by deep-sea divers, they would all be talking like Mickey Mouse, and they aren't. Obviously, the filmmakers wanted to avoid this comical side effect of breathing in helium, but it still reinforces this mistake.
11th Oct 2015
The Martian (2015)
Corrected entry: After being rescued on Sol 561, Watney tells his crewmates he hasn't showered for "a year and a half." But the day he leaves the Hab, Sol 461, Watney steps out of what is the shower, naked and toweling off his wet body and hair. So it has only been 100 Sols since he last showered. Even in Earth time that's less than 4 months - nowhere near a year and a half.
Correction: He took baths, but those aren't exactly the same, and regardless I'm pretty sure he meant a proper bath/shower, one that involved soap.
Then why he couldn't grow more potatoes if he had water?
Lack of water is not the reason Watney can't grow more potatoes after the blowout. He can't grow more potatoes because the potatoes and potato plants were all killed by the cold-there is nothing left to grow. Also, if he had lost his entire water supply...what would he drink?
He would not be able to make that amount of water again, the whole machinery got blown out. And he did not have enough fertilizer (aka poop) at that point.
No we saw him take multiple showers. I came to this site specifically for this error. He took showers. Naked with a towel drying off his very wet hair. So for him to say he hadn't taken a shower the whole time he was there, is a straight error.
Correction: This issue isn't the water. As stated in the NASA conference room on Earth after the HAB blowout, the freezing temperatures killed the bacterial microbes in the soil which would be required for the plants to grow.
I didn't review the movie, but if NASA said that, it's wrong. Many, probably most, soil bacteria would survive freezing, the colder and dryer the conditions the better. Maybe this is a new mistake?
NASA did say they thought all the bacteria had died. (In the book Watney figures out some survived, as you indicate, but they don't go into this in the movie.) However, the bigger issue is that all the potatoes and potato plants were killed when the Hab blew out and everything inside it was instantly depressurized and frozen. So there is nothing left alive for Watney to grow.
The problem was the potatoes. After being frozen they were no longer able to grow a plant. He had plenty of water and could have got more bacteria from his own feces, so it was the potatoes.
The real problem regarding not being able to grow more food is that all the potatoes and potato plants were killed when the Hab blew out. Watney figures out in the book that some bacteria did indeed survive, as you suggest, and he could indeed make more water (and more poop!). But it doesn't matter because now he has nothing to grow.
Correction: He would not be able to make that amount of water again, the whole machinery got blown out. And he did not have enough fertilizer (aka poop) at that point.
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Correction: As a deep sea SAT diver I have worked on many rigs as in the film. The air pressure in the rig is the same as the water pressure. That's why the sea doesnt pour in through the moon pool. You can swim from the rig without a problem, I have done it many times with just a wet suit to stop the cold killing me. You cant swim to or from the surface though as you would change pressure to fast and your lungs would pop.