‘Realistic’ sci-fi blockbuster’s flaws could backfire on Nasa
because its atmosphere is so thin.
Then there is the matter of gravity. The gravity on Mars is one-third of that on Earth, which means Damon’s character, who is seen walking normally, should be hopping about like a rabbit.
After seeing the film’s trailer, John Logsdon, a professor at George Washington University and author of several space books, said: ‘‘They would not be walking normally – maybe more like hopping, as they did on the moon. The sand storm is inaccurate too. The atmosphere is too thin for such a force. You would not feel winds no matter how fast they were.’’
When Damon was challenged about gravity at a screening, the usually amiable actor appeared irritated. ‘‘Wait – how much do you know?’’ he asked. ‘‘ Well,’’ the man replied, ‘‘I am an astrophysicist.’’
Damon and Scott paused in apparent panic before Scott explained that apart from the technical problems involved, showing the gravity accurately would have made audiences queasy and got in the way of the story of crisis and survival.
Logsdon points out that the film glossed over another potential problem for Damon’s character: the high levels of radiation on Mars.
‘‘The botanist might get very sick or, if he got home, die of cancer a year later,’’ he said.
However, he said The Martian was still more accurate than Gravity, the Oscar-winning film about stranded astronauts, which was admired by astronauts more for its look than for realism.
Professor Scott Hubbard, of Stanford University, said the depiction of Damon’s character using science to grow food while he waited for rescue was credible. ‘‘Nasa has done a lot of work on that sort of life support,’’ he said.
But the danger is that the few howlers could backfire on Nasa, which gave an unprecedented level of assistance to the film makers. Jim Green, Nasa’s director of planetary sciences, answered every question from Scott and his researchers, and invited the director and the actors to see prototypes.
Chastain said: ‘‘I went to JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] Nasa in Pasadena and looked at all the robotic work they were doing with missions to Mars, and I went to Houston Nasa and worked with an astronaut.’’
The flaws in the science will come as no surprise to fans of the book on which the film is based, by Andy Weir, a Californian computer programmer.
Weir has said it is ‘‘98 per cent accurate science’’.
But at Google’s headquarters near his home, he admitted recently to a ‘‘big secret’’.
‘‘I realised people don’t know about Martian dust storms, and it’s more dramatic, and I am a liar, so that’s it,’ he said grinning, to applause from Google executives.
However, Katherine Mack, an astrophysicist at Melbourne University, said the danger of movies with scientific holes in the plot was they made it easier for antiscience politicians to attack agencies such as Nasa.
For now, Nasa insists it is happy. Speaking at the screening alongside Scott and Damon, Green said: ‘‘It’s a fairly reasonable representation of what is going to come over the next 20 years or so.’’ Only later did he add the waiver: ‘‘But it’s still a Hollywood movie.’’