The Martian (2015)

what you non book readers do not know (now that this storm hole has been discovered) is that the MAV that he goes to to leave, well, there is a bigger storm that he has to navigate around to get to it. So, no clue why that MAV did not fall either, never thought of it... thanks Cad

The whole point of the other storm in the book was not the intensity but the size of it and its effects on the solar panels.

So did ares 4 get scrapped becouse he used their Mav? Would the Mav not have supplies he needed that he tossed out at the end? Based on the time line I though A4 was already in route to Mars, so those dudes would have to turn back or stay in orbit. a4 was supposed to be there on sol 9**. Thus must have been on route already right?

In that LLNL talk, the author admitted the strength of the storms was waaaay exaggerated. He could've done an accident or an explosion that forced the astronauts to leave but since it was a Man-vs-Mars story he wanted Mars to "strike first".

Prolly the biggest thing he said he missed (more than the water thing since he didnt know there was water there till like last week) was the perchlorate salts in Martian soil. Basically,levels of perchloratesin martian soil is thousands of times more toxic than is survivable by humans, so they'd need to leave their space suits on the outside and do a thorough wash in the airlocks. He'd also have to massively treat the soil before bringing it indoors to raise potatoes.

you are just assuming it's common, I got the impression it was those one in hundred year storms. Don't forget they probably only had a few decades of limited weather data.

Cad_sl said:

All it would need is some extensible leg supports and wind couldn't possibly blow it over. We're not talking about serious redesign here.

And the original complaint was if the storms are so common that one occurs during their original 30 day mission, how do they just plan on leaving the other one out there for years? Surely another storm will come along before Ares IV shows up.

Click to expand...

It cost what, $10,000 per pound of payload just to get something in orbit? When they were building the MTV they didn't have an unlimited budget, so basically they had to say "Our budget allows for us to build an MTV that can withstand a storm with winds up to 150kph, what are the chances that in the 4 years the MTV is there charging up it gets hit by a storm larger than that?" and so long as that chance was within the mission risk tolerances that is was okay. We can also infer that those risk tolerances were obscenely low when, with Mark's life in the balance, they almost didn't attempt to resupply him because the emergency launch had a 2.5% chance of failure.

The dust storm is a known plot hole. An extreme dust storm on Mars supposedly has the force of a light breeze on your face. What he could have done is use lightning instead. There are many examples of lightning strikes happening and a dust storm with raging lightning is probably more realistic. Still for a book so scientifically accurate based on the knowledge of one person I can give him a pass on the dust storm. I didn't know about the soil issues.

Cad_sl said:

Yea but the point is, how do you design your pre-positioned launch vehicle that is intended to stay there for years if there are random storms that will knock it over? Why not either design it to survive any possible storm or have it stay in orbit and deploy as needed? Either of these would work and close the plot hole, but then you'd need some other reason for characters to do what they do.

Having intelligent reasons that your characters do what they do (and thereby letting your characters be smart, and not having to blunder into adversity to make a plot arc) is a hallmark of good writing.

Click to expand...

Well, it used the atmosphere to generate hydrazine or something, so it would have had to have been on the ground the entire time.

I get your point but I think generally the point or rather intellectual exercise of the book was "what happens when bad things happen on a mars mission?" I mean, it very well could have been martian soil movement or something and just have them blinded by a storm and Watney is dumb and falls, killing the bio monitor but the time constraint causes them to leave without his body after he fell down a slope. Engineering Disasters 5 style, ton of bad shit happens at once to conspire against you versus unnatural martian storm.

Cad_sl said:

Its not like it ruins anything, it's just a bit of a plot hole. [Reason to leave watney on Mars] whatever that reason is, its fine. Just should have come up with something better

Click to expand...

What movie doesn't have a plot hole?

Mist_sl said:

It's not the force, it's the fact that the dust would trash everything. It's super fine so it clogs everything, is made of metals, radioactive charged particles, all sorts of shit. At least, that's what they used to think, I'm not sure what the current science is.

Click to expand...

Uhh, yea that's exactly what it is in the movie though, the wind literally knocking the spaceship over.

Mist_sl said:

It's not the force, it's the fact that the dust would trash everything. It's super fine so it clogs everything, is made of metals, radioactive charged particles, all sorts of shit. At least, that's what they used to think, I'm not sure what the current science is.

Click to expand...

Thanks for commenting on the plot details of a movie you clearly have not seen. The wind was the issue, as if it pushed the rocket over 13 degrees it would not be able to take off.