The Martian

After a good night’s sleep, Watney feels more hopeful about his situation. He patches up himself and his Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suit, and inventories his supplies and equipment. There is enough food to last an entire crew of six for 50 days, which means it will last him 300 days (400, if he rations it). In addition, he has six EVA suits, one for each crew member. The MAV is gone, but its landing stage is still there, and while the Mars Descent Vehicle (MDV) has a breach in its hull, it might be valuable for parts. He has two rover vehicles, both in good shape and usable, and the solar cell array is fully operational. The oxygenator and its backup are working, as is the water reclaimer. In other words, the Hab and all the equipment are more or less operational—and, if he can find a way to produce more food and extend certain supplies, Watney believes he has a chance of surviving until the next Mars mission, Ares 4, arrives in four years. He determines that his main task is to find a way to communicate with the Hermes, or with NASA, to let them know he is alive.

Since his rations will not last until the Ares 4 mission arrives in nearly four years, he develops a farming plan: He brought a small amount of Earth soil for experiments on the mission, so he can use this to seed Martian soil with bacteria, making it arable. In addition, he will be using his own “manure,” as well as that which was collected from the other crew members, to fertilize his soil. He has inventoried the food supplies and discovered several whole potatoes that were sent for the crew to cook a Thanksgiving dinner, and he decides to plant them. His other issue is water—he is going to have to figure out how to get more water, both for himself and the plants. Even with this plan, however, the potatoes only give him another 90 days of food, and he is still over 1,000 sols short of the Ares 4 arrival date.

It is sol 25, and Watney is getting closer to solving his food problem. He plans to speed up the potato crop through increased temperature. He is devoting the entire Hab to the potato farm. In addition, he sets up the pop-up tents that are a part of each rover’s equipment, planning to turn them into farmland as well. By sol 30, he still puzzles over how to increase water production for watering the potatoes, but after approaching the problem from a new angle, he decides that what he really needs to do is focus on getting oxygen and hydrogen—the elemental building blocks of water. He can get oxygen by making carbon dioxide and feeding it through the oxygenator. Getting hydrogen, however, is a more difficult and dangerous proposition. He can get it from the hydrazine fuel left in the MDV, but the operation will be risky.

During his spare time, Watney goes through the other crew members’ possessions in search of something to entertain himself and distract himself from his situation. He finds a data stick in Commander Melissa Lewis’s possessions that is full of television shows from the 1970s and 80s. It’s not ideal to him, but he has little choice. He begins with Three’s Company, a 1970s American situation comedy.

By sol 32, Watney determines that the best way to make water involves several dangerous steps with the hydrazine, then the hydrogen. He needs to be able to start a fire, which is more difficult than it sounds. Because fire is the most dangerous thing in space, all his equipment is designed to be fireproof—but while going through the other crew members’ possessions, he discovers a wooden cross belonging to pilot Rick Martinez. He uses it to start a fire.

His plan appears to be working, and he is successfully making the water. However, he soon realizes that, throughout this process, extra hydrogen has been collecting in the air. He realizes that he has been slowly gaining oxygen, but the only way to do that is if he hasn’t been burning all the hydrogen he has been releasing. He has, effectively, accidentally turned the Hab into a bomb. Any spark could cause an explosion. He escapes to one of the rovers until he can figure out what to do, taking with him a sample of the air in the Hab. Upon analyzing it, he discovers that the atmosphere in the Hab is 64% hydrogen. He can stay in the rover for a day or two, but he must use the time to figure out how to make the Hab safe again. If the Hab is destroyed, so are his chances of survival.

Watney devises a plan to get rid of the hydrogen trapped in the Hab. Hydrogen will only cause an explosion if there is oxygen in the atmosphere as well, so he decides to remove the oxygen from the Hab and wear a space suit. He will burn the hydrogen off in small, harmless bursts until it has all been removed. However, if gets rid of all the oxygen in the Hab, he will kill the bacteria in his soil and destroy his crops; he must first move all the potato plants to the rover so they don’t die from cold.

Despite carefully enacting his plan, there is soon an explosion, and he spends another night in the rover trying to figure out what went wrong. Finally, he realizes that his initial calculations did not account for the small amount of oxygen he exhaled in the Hab during the operation. The elementary error almost cost him his life. By the end of the chapter, he has rectified his mistake, gotten his water plan back on track, and can inhabit the Hab again. In addition, the bacteria in the soil survived, so the potatoes can grow.

On a humorous side note, while trapped in the rover, Watney discovers another data stick from Commander Lewis, filled with music. In keeping with her other media interests, it is 1970s disco. He continues with the 70s television as well, moving on to Dukes of Hazzard.