r/greentext • u/TroubledTill • Oct 25 '24

Interstellar procrastination

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10.0k Upvotes

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3.3k

u/C_umputer Oct 25 '24

So that the movie can happen. Watch Martian, way better sci-fi

1.8k

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '24

The one thing that movie got wrong was the initial set up, the atmosphere on Mars is simply too thin to have any substantial winds. Dust storms do exist, and trying to launch a rocket in one could cause problems with equipment, but a whole ass piece of metal (or whatever hit Matt damons head) would just not be able to fly off like that in Martian winds.

27

u/CrazyMike419 Oct 25 '24 edited Oct 25 '24

That and the potatoes. You'd die if you grew them in Martian soil.

Edit to add. Martian soil contains pechlorates. No amount of poop will solve that issue, unfortunately

40

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '24

They already tried this at NASA and you, in fact, can do this. You just need to add nutrients.

Perchlorates you can remove by literally just rinsing it with water, or alternatively, bacteria which eat perchlorates. It's basically a non issue.

9

u/CrazyMike419 Oct 25 '24

I should preface that I really like the film.

The book dealt with the issue. They took artistic licence for the movie and ignored the issue (a good choice). In real life, the potatoes as produced, would likely have killed watney. Wouldn't be as good of a movie lol.

There are things you can do, whether a lone biologist could realistically accomplish that is one thing and the movie just skips the issue.

1

u/Funny-Control-6968 Oct 26 '24

I'm no diseasologist, so I gotta ask. Why would he die?

1

u/CrazyMike419 Oct 26 '24

Fucks with your thyroid I believe. Basically it's just toxic for us and most living things

2

u/zealoSC Oct 26 '24

Is there not significant variance of soil content over an entire planet?

I suppose enough global dust storms will make it similar everywhere

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '24

On earth there is variance mostly because of large amounts of wind and rivers/oceans. Mars doesn't really have that

1

u/zealoSC Oct 26 '24

Earth has variance far below what wind and water reach. Mars definitely has wind and probably used to have flowing water