The Martian is one of the best hard scientific movies we’ve seen in recent years. But there are a few scientific inaccuracies.
The biggest is that Mars is depicted as having an Earthlike atmosphere. The dust storm that strands Mark on Mars is completely impossible. The author had originally intended to change it but by that point the story was too popular.
Throughout the movie we even see other instances where Mars is treated as having a dense atmosphere. The tarp he repairs the HAB with flaps in the wind. Which is cinematic but inaccurate.
For added fun in the book Mark encounters a second dust storm later on and this one is much more realistic. He doesn’t even notice it until it’s almost too late.
Mars has no radiation. One of the biggest impediments to a real life Mars mission is that the background radiation on Mars is much stronger than that on Earth. The HAB and Mark’s spacesuit would not be enough to protect him. This is never touched on in the story, so presumably they’re made of some futuristic radiation blocking fabric.
Mark never builds an antenna. Compared to some of the things Mark builds to survive on Mars an antenna would actually be relatively simple. Yet Mark never tries to repair the broken one, instead relying on Pathfinder. Presumably he doesn’t know enough about how radios work to consider this approach.
In the book Mark goes on at length about how dangerous the plutonium core he has to dig up is. Actually the core is relatively safe. Which is why plutonium batteries are used in pacemakers. Again this might just be Mark being mistaken.
The entire Iron Man scene is completely unrealistic. In the book Mark actually proposes it while delirious only to be shot down by Lewis because it wouldn’t work. In the movie he does it and it works.
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