The Martian

Anyone seen this movie? What were your thoughts?

Excepting impossible weather, it was better than I expected, and I expected it to be fairly good.

Excepting impossible weather

That bothered me too. Other issues that bothered me:

• The gravity depicted on the surface of Mars was unrealistic.
• It is currently considered unfeasable by NASA for us to take off from the surface of Mars and escape the planet's gravity.
• The severe radiation on the surface wasn't addressed. The HAB should have been underground.

Beyond these relatively small issues though, and the fact that Matt Damon got like 80% of the screen time, the movie was surprisingly good.

At no point in the movie does anyone take off from the Martian surface and escape Mars's gravity by means of the same vehicle. The MAV was only designed to reach LMO, and even the stripped down version fails to reach the required velocity.

I too, repeatedly asked why the HAB wasn't buried, and eventually concluded that this must be related to the short stay and the weight required for excavation equipment. Remember that the crew spends many times more time in space than time planned on the surface.

At no point in the movie does anyone take off from the Martian surface and escape Mars's gravity by means of the same vehicle. The MAV was only designed to reach LMO, and even the stripped down version fails to reach the required velocity.

Irrelevant. NASA does not currently believe there is any feasible way to take off from the surface of Mars to return to Earth. How many or what vessels were used is irrelevant. We can't even bring our dirt samples back from Mars yet...though there are plans in the works to manage to do that, at least. Getting humans or anything of significant mass off of the surface of Mars is a much bigger problem that there are currently no feasible solutions to. The technology simply doesn't exist yet. We don't even have the technology to safely land humans on Mars, the escape issue aside.

Info about sample returns

"Advanced entry, descent and landing techniques that reduce the G-forces on landers will also be developed for spacecraft and astronaut safety."

"Engineers and scientists around the country are working hard to develop the technologies astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant leap for humanity."

I too, repeatedly asked why the HAB wasn't buried, and eventually concluded that this must be related to the short stay and the weight required for excavation equipment. Remember that the crew spends many times more time in space than time planned on the surface.

Presumably they are shielded from extreme radiation while in space, but the HAB clearly was not shielded significantly.

Info about how astronauts are protected from radiation in space.

We have ways today to get humans safely down; they are all less than ideal, but if we were in a huge hurry for some reason, it could be done.
Ignoring that, the story takes place many years in the future; technology will progress, given sufficient funding. The weather on Mars will remain the same.

I suppose if you assume there was a massively larger push than is currently being made, it could be feasible, but it's only 20 years in the future.

For the curious: Ares 3 launched on July 7, 2035. They landed on Mars (Sol 1) on November 7, 2035. The story begins on Sol 6, which is November 12, 2035.

Source

Also, I think the claim that we currently have ways to get humans safely down is questionable at best. Perhaps we can get a human being onto the surface in one piece, but I highly doubt we could do it while providing them with the things they would need to survive once they get there, which I would personally consider a requisite for "safely" landing on Mars. The largest thing we've landed on the surface of Mars is the Curiosity rover which is only a single ton. An expedition to Mars would require significantly more mass than that, estimated at around 15 to 20 tons of equipment.

The way things are trending regarding NASA's budget, I'd say we'll be lucky to even be returning our samples from Mars by 2035, much less safely landing and returning people from Mars. I think it's absurd to suggest that we could safely land humans on Mars anytime soon (as in, within the next 10 years, much less today) with the way things are going, even if we don't intend to return them anytime soon after.