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Heavy part of The Martian plot given over to ag and cultivation

 

Before it was a major motion picture hitting theaters last week, The Martian was a novel from the mind of software engineer and space fan Andy Weir. It’s a simple story with complicated science.

Mark Watney is one of six astronauts on a manned mission to Mars sometime in the near future, when missions aren’t quite commonplace yet, but not entirely new. A dust storm forces Commander Melissa Lewis to order everyone aboard the single shuttle rocket they will use to return to their main ship in orbit, the Hermes, to head back to Earth weeks earlier than planned.

Only, Watney never makes it aboard. He’s struck and impaled by flying debris and, in the dark, though Lewis searches for him as long as she can, eventually his weakening life signs compel her and the crew to leave him for dead so they don’t miss their ship.

The simple story is of Watney battling to survive as long as he can in solitude on a planet with limited supplies, cut off from communication with humanity, a rescue crew four years away. The complicated science is how he goes about doing this, related by him in detail each day (or "sol," since it’s Mars – where the days are nearly 40 minutes longer than Earth’s) on his NASA video log for posterity.

Sure, there’s expected exposition of how Watney uses the machines on hand to breathe in his Hab – essentially a big tent housing crew bunks, lab space and storage – and how he makes additional potable water (break oxygen out of the planet’s carbon dioxide and burn it with hydrogen separated from nitrogen from another tank).

But a great deal of the story is given over to the details of Watney’s labors as makeshift Martian farmer. He has enough vacuum-sealed food left behind by the rest of the crew to last many months, but not four years. The one unprocessed foodstuff NASA’s supply team included was a pouch of potatoes for the crew’s Thanksgiving meal.

A botanist as well as an astronaut, Watney prepares much of the Hab as his mini-farm, lining the floor and hauling in barren Mars dust to mix with a small amount of Earth dirt he brought (and, well … other fertilizer), so Earth-sourced microbes can get to work colonizing the dust.

Once sufficiently nutrient-rich, into this hybrid soil he plants chunks of the potatoes he has cut up; 40 sols later there are multiple new potatoes, some of which he sets aside for food and the rest for replanting.

Is it realistic? Since it’s a fictional story, there’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief you need to enjoy it. But it sounds possible, if not easy. For Weir, potatoes were probably an attractive plot tool because they’re familiar, small and easy to store and carry, propagate and serve a variety of ways, while delivering the calories an adult would need to keep existing for a while.

The Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) endorses the potatoes as a "very good idea" but suggests pulses would be better to bring along to start an emergency garden. Pulses is a category of edible beans including pinto, chickpeas and peas, which the CSSA says are laden with protein and essential minerals.

"Spuds are great for calories, but it’s hard to beat pulses for nutritional quality," said Roch Gaussoin, a professor at the University of Nebraska and CSSA president. "Both plants would be easy to carry into space and would require minimal space to grow when compared to many other crops," and can adapt to grow in controlled environments.

Whether you’re Team Potato or Team Pulse – or Team Something Else Entirely – The Martian is an uncommonly favorable, high-profile portrayal of the critical inclusion of agriculture and plant science in a technologically advanced future.

Review by Ann Hinch
Associate Editor

10/7/2015