The Martian

Abandoned on Mars

The year 2035. The crew of the Ares III mission to Mars is conducting exploration on Acidalia Planitia on Martian solar day (sol) 18 of their planned 31-sol expedition. A severe dust storm suddenly threatens to topple their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV)—the spacecraft they will use to return to their orbiting vessel.

During the emergency evacuation in the blinding storm, astronaut Mark Watney is struck by flying debris. A piece of equipment impales him and damages his bio-monitor, which flatly reports his vital signs have ceased. His crewmates, unable to locate him in the storm and believing he is dead, face an impossible choice: stay and risk the MAV tipping over, or leave immediately. Facing imminent peril as the MAV begins to tilt dangerously, the remaining crew takes off for their orbiting vessel, the Hermes, which will then begin the months-long return journey to Earth.

Watney awakens after the storm passes, having narrowly survived his injuries. The debris that impaled him created a seal that prevented his pressure suit from fully depressurizing. As he recovers within the crew's surface habitat (called the "Hab"), Watney begins recording a video diary to document his situation and his thoughts on survival.

Watney cannot communicate with Earth—the storm destroyed the communications equipment. His only realistic chance of rescue is the next Mars mission in four years, when Ares IV will land at the Schiaparelli crater, approximately 3,200 kilometers away. The Ares IV MAV has already been pre-positioned at the landing site in preparation for that future mission.

With this four-year timeframe in mind, Watney identifies his main survival concerns: food and travel. The Hab was designed to support six people for 31 sols, not one person for approximately 1,400 sols until Ares IV arrives.

Growing Food on Mars

Watney is a botanist and mechanical engineer by training. He decides to cultivate a potato garden inside the Hab using the crew's stored bio-waste (human feces) as fertilizer, mixed with Martian soil to create viable growing medium. To provide water for the crops, Watney creates water through a dangerous chemical process using leftover hydrazine rocket fuel, carefully burning the toxic substance to produce H2O.

Watney also begins modifying a crewed rover for the eventual 3,200-kilometer journey to Schiaparelli crater, extending its power capabilities and preparing it for long-distance travel across the Martian surface.

Contact

On Earth, NASA satellite planner Mindy Park is reviewing recorded satellite images of the Ares III site when she notices something impossible: the equipment has moved. Someone must have moved it. Watney must be alive.

NASA director Teddy Sanders releases the shocking news to the public that Mark Watney survived and is stranded on Mars. However, Sanders decides not to inform the Ares III crew, who are still en route to Earth aboard the Hermes. He argues that telling them would serve no purpose and would only cause them psychological anguish for the remainder of their months-long journey. Flight director Mitch Henderson strongly objects to this decision, believing the crew has a right to know their crewmate is alive.

Watney explores the surrounding terrain, studying his maps and considering options. He realizes his best chance at communication is to journey out to the site where the Pathfinder probe landed in 1997—about 60 kilometers away. If he can retrieve Pathfinder and restore its communications systems, he might be able to contact Earth.

Mars missions director Vincent Kapoor realizes Watney's strategy when satellite images show him traveling toward the Pathfinder site. Kapoor quickly visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director Bruce Ng to locate their ground-based replica of the probe so they can test communications protocols.

Watney successfully retrieves Pathfinder and brings it back to the Hab. The agency makes contact with Watney and instructs him to link Pathfinder's camera to the rover's computer system, allowing them to communicate through text messages by pointing the camera at printed words.

With this communication breakthrough established, Henderson is finally allowed to inform the Ares III crew that Watney is alive. The crew is devastated to learn they left him behind but relieved he survived.

Catastrophe and International Cooperation

One evening as Watney enters the Hab, a leak in the airlock causes a catastrophic explosion. The blast injures Watney and completely destroys his potato garden—months of work and his entire food supply incinerated in seconds. Although Watney manages to repair the airlock and seal the Hab, he is once again threatened by starvation with no way to grow more food.

NASA scrambles to procure and launch a resupply ship loaded with food to reach Watney before he starves. Director Sanders, desperate to save Watney, orders that routine safety inspections be bypassed to expedite the mission and launch as quickly as possible.

This oversight results in catastrophe. The resupply ship disintegrates shortly after launch, exploding on live television. The mission fails completely, and Watney's food situation becomes critical.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) learns of NASA's failure and makes a surprising decision. They offer to provide their Taiyang Shen launch vehicle—originally intended to launch a Chinese space probe—to NASA for a resupply mission to Mars. The offer represents significant international cooperation and a willingness to delay China's own space program to save an American astronaut.

Meanwhile, JPL astrophysicist Rich Purnell devises a radical alternative plan that doesn't rely on resupply: send the Taiyang Shen launcher to resupply the Hermes instead of sending supplies to Mars. The Hermes could then use Earth's gravity to perform a "slingshot" maneuver, redirecting the ship back to Mars to pick up Watney—arriving two years earlier than the Ares IV mission.

Director Sanders flatly rejects Purnell's idea, considering it too risky for the Ares III crew. Extending their mission by years and sending them back into deep space after they've already endured so much seems unconscionable, and there's significant risk the maneuver could fail.

However, flight director Henderson, still angry about Sanders's earlier decision to withhold information from the crew, surreptitiously sends Purnell's proposal directly to the Hermes crew. The crew reviews the plan and unanimously votes in favor of the rescue attempt, then executes the course change to divert the Hermes back toward Mars.

Sanders, outmaneuvered and facing a fait accompli, is forced to support the crew's decision publicly. However, he demands Henderson's resignation after the mission is complete as punishment for insubordination.

The Journey

After waiting several months for the Hermes to complete its Earth gravity assist and begin the return journey, Watney embarks on his long-planned journey to Schiaparelli crater. He drives the modified rover across 3,200 kilometers of Martian terrain—a journey lasting weeks—surviving on carefully rationed food supplies.

Watney reaches the Ares IV MAV successfully. However, the MAV was designed to launch five astronauts from Mars's low gravity, and even empty it is too heavy to achieve the velocity needed to rendezvous with the Hermes. Watney must lighten the load considerably.

Working alone, Watney partially dismantles the MAV's cockpit, removing the nose cone, windows, and any non-essential equipment. He essentially converts the MAV into an open-air rocket with minimal protection, trusting his pressure suit to keep him alive during ascent.

Rescue

Watney launches the modified MAV into Martian orbit. However, even with the weight reductions, the Hermes crew calculates that they remain too far away and are moving too fast to retrieve him safely. The rendezvous window is closing rapidly.

Commander Melissa Lewis quickly improvises a desperate solution: deliberately explode part of the Hermes's airlock. The violent escape of atmosphere will act as a thruster, slowing the Hermes enough to close the distance to Watney.

The crew executes the plan, depressurizing part of their ship. Lewis then pilots a tethered Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU)—essentially a jetpack—to personally reach Watney and bring him back to the ship.

However, even with these maneuvers, Lewis and Watney remain too far apart. They are out of propellant and ideas, drifting in different trajectories with the distance between them slowly increasing.

Watney quickly improvises a final, desperate solution. He uses a sharp tool to pierce his pressure suit's glove, deliberately creating a leak. The escaping air propels him through the vacuum like a thruster, giving him just enough velocity to reach Lewis.

Watney manages to grab onto Lewis, and she reels them both back to the Hermes on the tether. The rescue is successful.

NASA mission control and spectators across the entire world—watching the live feed from the Hermes—celebrate the successful rescue. Mark Watney, stranded alone on Mars for over 500 sols, is finally going home.

Epilogue

After returning to Earth and completing his recovery, Watney becomes a survival instructor for astronaut candidates, teaching the next generation of space explorers.

Five years after his rescue, as the Ares V mission is about to launch for Mars, the film shows brief glimpses of the people involved in Watney's rescue in their current lives. All of them pause to watch the launch footage, remembering the mission that united the world and brought one man home from an alien planet.

The ending validates Watney's determination and scientific problem-solving as essential to survival, demonstrating that maintaining rational thought and methodical approaches to problems even in desperate circumstances can overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. His survival required not just NASA's resources but his own ingenuity in growing food, creating water, repairing equipment, and improvising solutions like the pressure suit thruster.

The crew's unanimous decision to return for Watney despite personal risk demonstrates that astronauts prioritize crew loyalty over personal safety, rejecting the utilitarian calculation that risking six lives to save one is irrational. Their choice validates the principle that no one gets left behind regardless of cost, making Sanders's initial decision to withhold information seem even more ethically wrong.

China's offer of the Taiyang Shen launcher represents international cooperation transcending political rivalry in service of shared humanity, suggesting that space exploration creates common purpose that can overcome geopolitical tensions. The decision to delay their own space program to save an American astronaut demonstrates that some values—preserving human life—supersede national competition.

Henderson's insubordination in sending the plan to the crew despite Sanders's orders suggests that sometimes moral action requires violating chain of command, though the film acknowledges consequences by showing Henderson forced to resign. The ending presents his resignation as worthwhile sacrifice for doing the right thing rather than as tragedy.

The five-year time jump showing everyone watching Ares V launch demonstrates that Watney's rescue inspired continued Mars exploration rather than causing NASA to abandon the program due to the mission's cost and danger. His survival becomes symbol of human resilience that encourages rather than discourages future missions.

Is The Martian based on a true story?

No, the film is based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel of the same name, which is a work of science fiction. However, Weir researched extensively to make the science as accurate as possible, consulting with NASA and scientists to ensure that Watney's survival methods—growing potatoes, creating water, modifying equipment—are scientifically plausible with existing or near-future technology, even if the specific scenario is fictional.

Could someone actually survive on Mars using Watney's methods?

Many of Watney's survival techniques are scientifically sound in theory: growing plants using human waste as fertilizer, creating water from hydrazine, using solar panels for power, and modifying rovers for extended journeys are all feasible with the right equipment and knowledge. However, the timeline is extremely compressed—Watney accomplishes in months what would likely take years, and several elements (like the severity of Martian dust storms) are exaggerated for dramatic effect. The Martian's atmosphere is actually too thin to create winds strong enough to topple equipment.

Why didn't NASA tell the crew immediately that Watney was alive?

Director Sanders argued that informing the crew during their months-long return journey would serve no purpose since they couldn't do anything to help from the Hermes, and would only cause them psychological anguish and guilt. However, the film presents this as ethically wrong—Henderson's objection and later insubordination suggest the crew had a right to know regardless of practical considerations, and that withholding information was a violation of trust.

What does "sol" mean?

A "sol" is a Martian solar day—the time it takes Mars to complete one rotation. A Martian sol is approximately 24 hours and 39 minutes, slightly longer than an Earth day. Mars missions use sols rather than Earth days because the mission operates on Martian time, with daylight and darkness cycles determined by Mars's rotation rather than Earth's.