Alexander Winn and Lacey Hannan continue to discuss Andy Weir’s The Martian, in which Mark Watney almost blows himself up and Lacey firmly believes Mindy Kaling would make an excellent NASA employee.
𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕪𝕟𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕚𝕤 is a live talk show that aims to find the relationship between science and fiction in pop culture. We’ll discuss a book, movie, or show each week that’s science-focused and talk about just how realistic it is, where reality is cooler than fiction, and exactly where certain liberties were taken.
[00:00:03] Hey, folks, this is Alexander Winn, Lacey Hannan, and we’re here to talk about chapters four through six of the Martian picking up from last week, Lacey is putting the finishing touches on her read through right now. And that’s what you were going to be laughing is freaking love this book, right? So we did the first three chapters last week and we’re doing the next three chapters today. So first off, general impressions, what do you think of this section?
[00:00:38] OK, yeah, I still love Mark Watney. Yes, he’s still my favorite. And and we get to we get to meet new characters. Yes. And big development. Yes. And of course, then we see a narration change. Yes. Which is fun. Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m really excited about about the mixing it up and changing it, because I even pointed out in my notes that there’s some things that I could see getting a little old. So I’m excited to dove in to the other side of this story.
[00:01:08] Yes, indeed. But first we start off with Chapter four. And I did actually notice something that doesn’t get mentioned in the book unless I just glossed right over it, which is Chapter four starts log entry SOL thirty two, which means he has officially been on Mars longer than he was supposed to. This was a thirty one day mission and chapter four starts on day thirty two or SOL thirty to solving the term for a day on Mars. Yeah. So I just thought that was a funny little thing that they just kind of glossed over. He’s too busy. Yes he’s got, he’s got to do. That’s certainly true. So a bit of behind the scenes for you. I have one line here in my notes that says starting off with deep chemistry, but still a still approachable but definitely taking the gloves off with the science. What I put in one line, I get the impression that you have more than that.
[00:02:00] Oh, yeah. So you guys, I have like pages and pages and pages and pages on on my. Well, listen to that long list, mine or not. Listen, if you think my husband can be verbose. Oh, I can be to know. I guess it’s a lot of it has to do with. I want to walk through his water. Yes. Yeah. OK, can we do that. Yes.
[00:02:30] Do you want me to just launch into it or do you have. No. Oh no. OK, I’m going to be here for a while.
[00:02:35] So before we even get there, I really like how he approaches this because he like lays some some information out and then he’s like, I really like how he approaches.
[00:02:46] This is like the tagline for this book, like that’s all this book is. I really like how he approaches this.
[00:02:52] So he lays out some information for us and then he lays out his plan. And, you know, OK, you can follow it. Yeah, of course. But then he says, as you can see and I’m sitting here going, oh, that’s so nice of you. I really appreciate you. Like I this is this is exactly the thing that I that I want to see from entertainment is believing that the audience is smart enough to follow along. And it’s we don’t see entertainment like this very often that believes in the intelligence of its audience, for example, like it’s not that a lot of movies or TV shows or anything like that actually like specifically condescend to their audience. They find new and interesting ways to condescend to us, like gravity. Were they just like remove all of the details and they gloss over everything and it’s like this is boring because I don’t you’re only making the story about the character’s emotional reactions then you are to what? Why are they here?
[00:03:55] Yeah, it’s the lowest it’s it’s literally the lowest common denominator in the sense that if there’s anybody in the audience who isn’t going to get it, we’re not going to do it at all.
[00:04:02] Yeah, and it makes the characters so much more interesting when they know their stuff, like everybody in the world has something that they know a lot about. And I mean, you might not be an expert. You might not have, you know, even a bachelors. And you don’t have to, like, go to college to know a lot of things about the things you’re interested in.
[00:04:22] Yeah. And it’s not always science, like some people know a lot about Star Wars, and that’s cool. But if you’re then making a Star Wars product, you want to appeal to those people, to you can’t just make everything for the people who don’t know.
[00:04:37] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I, I really appreciated this and I actually read that line, like just that first phrase, as you can see, like multiple times, because it just charmed me that we were like, oh, he thinks we’re following along. And I sort of am. Yeah, but the whole the, the whole line is, as you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for for me to die in a fiery explosion. And my thought process was, no, I can’t see that. Not really. I could see I could see one way. One way was pretty obvious. Yes. But many I was like, that’s a lot of confidence in me. I appreciate you. That’s more confidence than any of my science teacher has had in me. So you’re very kind man. So but both funny and heartbreaking. Welcome to being a woman. Yeah, but but for the sake of the story, I’m I’m glad that he goes on to actually outline all of it. But that doesn’t mean I totally understand all of it. So I would like to step through. Step through it. Yeah. OK, so I’m going to say what I think is happening and then you tell me what’s actually happening, OK? Yeah. Yeah, OK. I don’t think I’m an idiot, you guys. I just think that like.
[00:05:55] No, it’s this is complex. It’s complex. And like I said, the still approachable, but definitely taking the gloves off. Yeah. This is.
[00:06:02] Yeah. And it’s OK. So just to most people have never heard of hydrazine. So just to be really clear, Alex, while knowing a lot about science and happily being willing to talk about it a lot is not actually an expert. So we’re going to give us all like a lot of room to make mistakes. And if we do feel free to play out because you’re intelligent and you can do that. Yes. And you can do it with kindness.
[00:06:28] If we can be here having studied like film and stuff, talking about real science, we invite you to join in as well. Yeah, that’s the to me, like, honestly not to like, veer off too much, but that’s the fun part of science for me, is that it’s not just about being wrong, it’s about learning what’s right. And so if we say something on air that is wrong, then, hey, jump in the comments and tell us what we missed, because, you know, that’s cool.
[00:06:55] That’s fine, I. I want to learn it. That’s why I’m asking. OK, so step one. Yes, the MAV, which is the Mars ascent vehicle, I’m going to figure out what all vehicles are here because I keep getting really confused. OK, let’s go. Hold on. Let’s just go through them real quick. We’ve got the movie. So the Mars ascent vehicle, the MTV, the ascent vehicle, which is. Which one?
[00:07:21] Wait. So they so they came in from the Hermes, the Hermes is the interplanetary ship that they were on, OK? The really big sort of space station looking thing from the movie, the MTV is a ship that they took from the Hermes down to the surface of Mars. The AUV was there waiting for them. Right. So they do their thing on Mars for a while and then a dust storm hits and they have to evacuate. So they get in the way of Mars ascent vehicle.
[00:07:46] They go back to all that’s left. There is like the the essentially like launch pad aspect of it, like the there’s a portion that does not go up with it.
[00:07:55] Yeah. The Navy landed like a couple of years ago in preparation for this mission with essentially like a launch pad, like you were saying that that launch pad portion includes something that can create fuel. But it’s a very slow process, which is why it’s been here for so long. Exactly. So well, that and also just sort of prep. They want to make sure that it’s there and ready before they send any. So it’s it lands and starts making fuel. They blast off, but it leaves the fuel plant behind.
[00:08:26] And then there’s also the MTV, which he’s been stripping for. And there are two rovers and there are two rivers and a hab. And yeah, that’s that’s all the structures in the area. Yeah. I mean, unless you count the solar panels, which are, you know. Well OK, but these are the big things. Yeah. The things that you can get inside Mavie MTV have two rovers.
[00:08:49] OK, but the movie is mostly gone. Got it. OK, so from that, from what’s left over of the maybe the here is pulling out the fuel plant which has CO2 in it and he’ll release that CO2 into the air in the in the hab and the Habs oxygenation system or oxygen will turn it into oxygen at its normal rate.
[00:09:14] Yeah. So. So just to start out with the the the challenge here is make water. Yes. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make water and pretty much everybody knows water is H2O, two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom. So basically the problem that we are trying to solve here is how do we get those ingredients? How do we get oxygen? How do we get hydrogen? And so his solution for the oxygen is, hey, this thing over here has been collecting CO2 from the Martian atmosphere. And inside the hab, I have a tool that’s supposed to take my CO2 and recycle it back into oxygen. So if I just go take this tank of CO2, take it into the lab and just open it and it just vents all this CO2 into the atmosphere, into the atmosphere of the habit, the oxygen later kicks in and goes, whoa, there’s way too much CO2 in here, starts pulling it out and making oxygen. So now he has the O for his H2O. Great.
[00:10:09] Yeah. OK, so step two. Yes, he’s he’s also pulling hydrazine. And how do I pronounce this the catalyst. The Iridium. Yeah, iridium. Oh look at that gomi. OK, so. He gets that from the end of both of those things, right? And he says that a hydrazine is super toxic and it will burn him so he doesn’t want to breathe it and he doesn’t want it to spill on him because then he’ll have chemical burns because of his life.
[00:10:40] This is rocket fuel. You don’t want it to touch you. Right. Anyway, he also refers to the iridium.
[00:10:47] Catalyst as a reaction chamber, it’s the same thing is he using these he’s putting Iridium in a reaction chamber. So basically a catalyst in chemistry, a catalyst is a thing that starts a chemical process but does not actually participate in the chemical process. So in this case, he’s got a bowl because hydrogen hydrazine is a liquid. He’s got a bowl. He puts a radium in the bowl. Iridium is just like it’s like a metal like in the picture rocks. And then he pours hydrazine into the bowl. The iridium makes the hydrazine react, but it doesn’t actually use iridium in that reaction. So the iridium is still left behind and he can keep using it. And in the meantime, hydrazine, which the the chemical formula for hydrazine is Enta H for. And what happens when so what happens when hydrazine meets Iridium is it starts a reaction that splits it in from end to age four into one molecule of N two and two molecules of H to. So he’s already got the O for his water and now he’s going to take that that hydrazine hydrazine and for every molecule of hydrazine, the iridium will split it into two molecules of H two.
[00:12:05] And so what he’s done is he’s taken all of the bags and he’s put it over his little lab setup. He’s got going and he’s duct taped everything. And then he took what it was some sort of air hose, I think, from someone from one of the spacesuits. Yeah. Which I really like how he refers to it, because he says that he is murdering a space suit. And just like I just really enjoyed that. It’s hyperbole can be really fun. Yes.
[00:12:33] So anyway, so he he makes this tent, he puts the air hose at the top, um, and kind of hangs it essentially. And so that hydrogen is really hot after this.
[00:12:47] Yeah. The reaction that Iridium causes releases a lot of heat and it rises.
[00:12:51] So it goes the chimney. And what he’s doing is he’s essentially standing on the outside of it with splinters of cross turned and torch. Yeah.
[00:13:01] And he’s he’s burning out the top of a chimney. You can literally picture like a chimney, like a house. There’s a bowl with liquid coming in and iridium and it’s creating hydrogen. And the hydrogen is being funneled up through this chimney. And then at the top of the chimney, there’s a flame.
[00:13:15] Yeah. Yeah. OK, great. Um, so.
[00:13:22] That what is exothermic again, so reactions, chemical reactions have two different types, endothermic is a reaction that takes more heat than it generates, and so it creates cold. Basically, this is like reactions used to make refrigerators and that sort of thing. Chemical reactions can actually reduce the heat around. And then there’s exothermic, which is like burning wood. The chemical reaction that happens when you burn wood releases more heat than it takes to make the reaction happen. So it produces heat and that heat heats up the wood even more, which produces more heat. And that’s why fire is a self-sustaining thing. So what he’s saying is that this reaction with the iridium and the hydrazine is very exothermic. Yeah, it releases a lot of heat. And so.
[00:14:11] Right. I’m going to learn so much just from this book. Right. It’s so much fun. So much fun. What? Well, the other thing the thing that kind of made me laugh is he talked about how it’s going to make the have really hot. And he mentions that it’s 30 degrees Celsius in there at one point. And he’s from Chicago. And I get it, he’s a scientist.
[00:14:33] He he is not using Fahrenheit. Like, that’s just not what’s going to happen. But I like that he’s.
[00:14:41] Talking to his audience, which obviously for the sake of suspension of disbelief, he’s not talking to us, the audience, he’s talking to NASA scientists. But I still like it’s still made me giggle that he use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit as an American.
[00:14:57] And one can only hope that by the time we’re landing people on Mars that maybe will we will have actually, I’m sure I’d be I’d be fine with that.
[00:15:04] But I was just like way not to the or cater to me, man, you jerk. Now, I think if I remember correctly, like from our time in New Zealand, I think that’s like high eighties. Don’t quote me on that.
[00:15:13] But it’s a little hard. It’s harder than that. 30 degrees I think is a hot day, but not.
[00:15:20] Yes, but hot is not the same thing in New Zealand as it is here. Like it doesn’t ever really hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit in New Zealand. You look it up.
[00:15:28] Thirty degrees. Oh, look at that sea. You’re smarter than anybody thinks you are. Thirty degrees is do you. Eighty six degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, I would have pegged it. I thought thirty degrees would be fine. I’m so proud of myself, so proud of myself. Silly Americans and not knowing Celsius.
[00:15:48] I remembered, um, I just, I just remember that the peninsula is the northern peninsula would get to like the highest of like thirty four degrees Celsius and that’s still, I don’t believe, one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So, um, anyway, the other thing that gets mentioned here is Martian vampires, and I’m really intrigued. So I if anybody out there is just like I need a writing prompt, I’m really stuck. If you would do a scientifically accurate vampire fantasy on Mars, I would read it. And I don’t like vampire stories. I mean, Buffy’s great. And and the Dresden Files has some great vampire storylines, but I, I’m not really into them and I would absolutely read that.
[00:16:34] So if you do it, there is so much potential for fantasy stories on Mars. Just putting it out there. You could tell a werewolf story on a planet with two moons. Seems like it just it goes on and on and on. There’s so many different, like, sort of tropes to play with on other planets.
[00:16:52] I would absolutely read it. So, you know, send it to me if you ever do it. Yes.
[00:16:56] But yeah. So then at some point. Mm hmm. Um.
[00:17:03] Where where where are we we’ve we’ve got we’ve got we’ve got our oxygen from the CO2, we’ve got our hydrogen from the hydrazine, and the plan is I’m just going to burn it at the top of this chimney and it’ll basically just get really humid in here. And it’s going to it’s going to create water, but it’s going to create water just in the atmosphere. And then the water reclaimer, which is another tool of the also will pull the water out of the air and put it in tanks so that now and really it’s not going to be the tanks aren’t going to be big enough.
[00:17:33] So he uses yet another spaces that he laid later calls the system.
[00:17:39] Yeah. Which just great. I really like that.
[00:17:42] So I do absolutely love just on sort of the the fun side. He’s burning hydrogen. He’s he’s making water. Things are going great. And there’s this hilariously optimistic moment where he’s just like, I’m feeling good, everything’s going to plan. I really think I’m going to be able to pull this off. And it’s like log entry the next day. And he’s like, I am absolutely going to die.
[00:18:06] And this is such a perfect just jinxing of his whole situation was like that was one of the things that I pointed out is I this is you know, I kind of said before that he likes to end up on that really high note and then take us down like a couple of pegs. The contrast is just so funny. And this and this is the biggest contrast he’s done so far. And it made me laugh. But simultaneously, like jokes get kind of overdone very quickly for me. So I when we get to Chapter six and we start seeing new people, I was like, oh, good, because I don’t want his jokes to wear out. Yeah. And, you know, he’s a great writer, so maybe they wouldn’t maybe he’d keep finding new ways of surprising us and having fun. But it’s good that he didn’t have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
[00:18:50] And it is a great way of raising the stakes we cut to the next day. And he is not only sure that he’s going to die, he is hiding in the rover and does not want to go back to the lab like that is a big deal. Yeah, that is a great way of just like instantly raising the stakes.
[00:19:04] I love that he is like NASA specifically prepares in every way for things to not get on fire. And I’m bringing fire into the hab. Yeah. And I just it’s another way of making it really apparent that this is a hobby. Like you said, it’s a terrible, dangerous idea, but it’s the one he has. Um, there is a line in there that I want to know if it’s a reference. OK, so he says, dammit, Jim, I’m a botanist, not a chemist.
[00:19:34] It rings familiar, but I don’t Star Trek, that’s there’s a there’s a running joke in the original Star Trek from the Sixties that McCoy keeps getting asked to do things. And he’d be like, damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a lawyer or dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a whatever, whatever.
[00:19:50] OK, yes, OK. I knew I heard that somewhere. Thank you.
[00:19:56] So we we catch up the next day and he’s hiding in the rover because and this is one of the notes that I have is I love how he makes plausible mistakes. This is not the story of a superhero who just knows how to handle every single situation perfectly. This is a guy who comes up with really smart plans and is really proud of himself and then misses something and then has to deal with it. And it’s so much fun to watch him do that. And in this case, he made the mistake of assuming that he was burning all the hydrogen that was coming out, and he ended up realizing that there was way too much hydrogen in this area.
[00:20:38] And this is not the first time he makes this mistake. I mean. Yeah, well, OK. Now what what I really mean is in an upcoming chapter, he makes another similar sort of mistake. Yeah. So it it is interesting to to watch him be human. Yeah. And, you know, this is overwhelming. Like the amount of plans that this guy has had to come up with to stay alive is like, I’m sorry, The Revenant does not compare. No, sorry.
[00:21:05] Leonardo DiCaprio just putting it out there. Yeah. Uh, um, so yeah. This is he. Oh, I like his ending line of this chapter. OK, are you there.
[00:21:19] Are you ready. I was just going to say this is one of those moments that every once in a while in this story, I like to take a moment and imagine he could have died here like this could have been. The story is that they they come back and they recover his logs and he’s like, hey, I’m going to try to make water. And apparently he blew himself up and everybody kind of like wonders what went wrong, but he didn’t. Well, that’s just sort of a parallel universe of the Martian is like, oh, yeah, could he have?
[00:21:47] And he’s trying to kind of stop that from happening. One of the things you said on the last episode is we’re always seeing things after he’s done them. Yeah. And here we’re not. This is he interrupts himself well, but he says I’m going to do this. So in case I die like everyone knows. But this is not something that he’s written in there because he missed it, missed it, so people would still wonder why it’s just kind of this neat little like I’m going to tell you what stupid thing I’m going to do. So in case I die, you know, why it happened? And he was just thinking about, like bringing fire into the hab and making an explosion happen just in case I make the Watney Memorial crater.
[00:22:26] Yeah. Which is so good. Macabre but hilarious. Oh my.
[00:22:32] I really liked the the ending line. Yeah. Which was. The hab is now a bomb, and I was just like, it’s so succinct, yeah, it’s so.
[00:22:44] Yes, it’s so true and I don’t know. I was just delighted by I was delighted apparently Eman Economists’ has has a has a book, no series for us. The Genuine Bastards is a fantasy. Stories that on Mars. So really. Thank you. Thanks. I’m putting that on my list.
[00:23:04] Yes, exactly. Yes. Thank you. I barely get through this book. So Alex is going to be like, oh, why are you reading? We are here. You’re supposed to be done with, you know, who knows? Maybe we’ll do that next time. Well, yeah. See how scientifically accurate it. Yeah, it is. I like it. Like vampires and stuff.
[00:23:26] Um, all right. So Chapter five.
[00:23:29] Yes. So the first thing that I have noted here for Chapter five is I really enjoy that there’s this sort of repeated cycle of presented with a problem. And then he gives us like an index of his assets, like this is what I have. This is what I can work with. This is everything I have at hand. And that is to me, the strength of this story, because so often solutions are presented just as kind of like a fait accompli, like Sherlock Holmes walks into the room, he looks around and he says, I know who did it. And maybe he walks you back through his logic after the fact. But it’s really about him having the answer, whereas this is a story about someone finding the answer. And the first step to that is what do I have? What can I play with? What can I use? Right. Sort of the central tenet of science. And it’s the central tenet of this story, and that is the strength of this whole book.
[00:24:28] That’s a good way to delineate the two things. I like that. Yeah, I’m going to be honest.
[00:24:36] My brain stopped working while I was reading Chapter five, so most of my notes are not actually about the science. So I hope you enjoyed Chapter Four’s discussion, because for me, Chapter five does not have as much.
[00:24:47] Did you did you get what you were looking for? I mean, yeah, you’re you’re fully there.
[00:24:53] What is hydrazine though. Like what is it used for? It’s rocket fuel. Oh that’s ok. OK then. Yes I’m good. Yeah. I will say that for this chapter I probably can’t regurgitate any of the science. However, I wrote down a lot about the writing and the voice because I loved it.
[00:25:10] So, you know, well I’ve got a few things about the science, so I’ll show it up. But before we get to that, I will have to say the one of the most important elements of this story gets introduced in Chapter five, and that’s Desco. And I’m so happy because Desco has become like this big part of The Martian, especially thanks to the movie, because they lean on it pretty hard. And we finally got there.
[00:25:36] And I just it makes me funny thinking that Jessica Chastain likes disco.
[00:25:41] She just doesn’t smile much. So it just doesn’t sit right with me.
[00:25:45] I really love it. We’ll get to this when we do the movie at the end of this. But I really love not only do they have, you know, her liking disco the way they do, but like are moments in the movie that aren’t from the book where at the very end her or her husband or boyfriend presents her with like a new record that he found at some, like, record shop. And she gets like really excited. And like even when they’re on their way back to Earth, he’s he’s video chatting with her and he’s like showing her this disco record that he found. And she’s like, really into it. And it becomes this sort of part of her character beyond just the guy.
[00:26:22] I have to really watch it because I really don’t remember that. And I’d love to see Jessica Chastain. Oh, yeah. That she lights up about a new find. It’s charming as hell. That’s I mean, it sounds like it. I now listen, I will tell you when we’re kind of jumping to the disco, but it’s fine. Whatever I will say. If you were like me, I did not like disco until recently. And I will tell you what did it you learn about the history of disco and you are going to be way more into it. Go find the podcast you’re wrong about and go find the episode titled Something along the lines of Hold on, I’ve got it, I’ve got it. Just Disco Demolition, Demolition, Disco Derby. Those three words are in it. Disco Demolition Derby. Go find that one. It’s from sometime this summer and it’s most excellent. Um it’s, it’s, I love, I love that podcast and it’s news flash.
[00:27:17] One of the founders of Hedrick’s Entertainment gets more enjoyment out of something by learning about how it works. One film at 11 shut up. Oh, my God. So this chapter is basically about who I diffuse the bomb that is the hab and what he comes up with is there’s too much hydrogen in the air. So he’s going to remove the oxygen for the most part and just sort of burn it off in little bursts. And that sounds like the scariest thing ever, sitting in a giant bubble of hydrogen with a little bit of oxygen and burning it a little bit at a time to try to wear it down.
[00:27:54] But what did he mean or what did he mean by that? What are you burning it off?
[00:27:59] So basically, he wanted to make water. Right, and he needed to get rid of the hydrogen because, yeah, that’s too much. And so what? So his solution is. You can’t just burn all the hydrogen away because it will explode, but hydrogen can’t burn without oxygen. So he actually gives the numbers. The atmosphere in the lab is 64 percent hydrogen and nine percent oxygen. So what he does is he removes the oxygen from the air. And so that way the hydrogen just can’t burn like at all. Like you could you could light up, you know, a flame or whatever, and it just wouldn’t burn. But he can then take an oxygen tank and basically do the exact opposite of what he was doing originally instead of an atmosphere of oxygen. And he’s got a little bit of hydrogen that he’s burning. He’s got an atmosphere of hydrogen and he’s got a little bit of oxygen that he’s burning. So it won’t explode because there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain burning the oxygen. I mean, they burn together like that. Right, right. Right. But what he’s got is he’s got a little bottle of oxygen that he’s releasing and he’s got a flame in front of it as he burns a little bit of the hydrogen away, each little burst of oxygen that he’s releasing. And so the the the plan is just over time. Every time he does it, a little bit of hydrogen gets turned into water. And if he just keeps doing that, he can get the hydrogen levels down to the point where it’s no longer an exploding hazard. Right. Which brings us to his next mistake. And I know you have a lot of lines that you specifically quote in your notes. I’ve got one here. Everything went great right up until the explosion. And this is actually this so this is a great moment in the book, but it was also really nice for me because I read The Martian years ago and then I watched the movie and I’ve watched the movie probably 20 times since then.
[00:29:58] And there was a moment in the movie that I never really got. I never understood it never quite made sense, which is in the movie.
[00:30:05] They skip this part about the hab filling up with hydrogen and becoming a bomb and he just burns. He does his thing with the chimney and he’s burning hydrogen and he lights the fire and he celebrates and goes, woo! And it explodes.
[00:30:22] And he’s thrown backward and then he’s later talking into the camera and talking about how I didn’t account for the oxygen that I was breathing, and I was like, what does that even mean?
[00:30:34] Like the oxygen that you were breathing is the oxygen in the room.
[00:30:36] There’s no extra oxygen just because it’s coming out of your lungs. It’s just the oxygen that is in. Of course, you accounted for that. That’s the oxygen that you have, man. And he never really made sense to me. And so I was so gratified when I was reading this chapter for this episode, because that’s not what happened in my book. So he wasn’t accounting for the oxygen that he was breathing because he had removed the oxygen from the atmosphere. And so he had his little bottle of oxygen sort of squirting out little bits of oxygen and burning it. But he forgot that there’s a big source of oxygen right here in front of his face. And every time he exhaled, he was releasing more oxygen this way. And so he had his flame here. But there’s a whole bunch of oxygen coming out of his head and it filled up to the point where the whole room exploded.
[00:31:20] It’s you know, it’s one of those things where the conversation can come back to that age old question, not ages, because movies really only. Yeah, I mean, they’ve only been centuries old tradition. Yeah. Yeah. As is the book. Better than the movie. Yeah. And in this in this way I’m not going to say it’s I’m not going to say one thing’s better than the other. I will just say one things more scientifically accurate.
[00:31:43] Well yeah, the adaptation was flawed. They wanted to keep the moment of Mark Watney blowing himself up, but they removed the reason that he blew himself up. And they just sort of hope to the nobody would notice. And to their credit, even I didn’t notice, really. I knew that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what was going on until the book.
[00:32:00] So but, you know, experts would know, but the rest of the world would be in the dark.
[00:32:04] Exactly. OK, so, yeah, he forgot to account for the accident. He was breathing, but luckily he got enough of the hydrogen burned away that by the time the oxygen built up to the point that it caused the explosion, there wasn’t enough hydrogen to blow up the hab.
[00:32:19] It just sort of flashed banged in his face and.
[00:32:24] Yeah, what I like about this part is he plans and he explains to you exactly who is going to do it. He’s going to take out all of the potatoes. They have started rooting, but not sprouting. Yes. And he needs them to not be in the hab because he needs to turn the temperature the whole way down. And so he puts them in the rover. And there’s a moment where he says that he jimmied it so that the heat would stay on. And I loved that freezing again. For me, everything’s about the voice in this chapter. To Jimmy, something is to MacGyver something. And I know a lot of people who use the word MacGyver out here or or different takes on that. But to me, to Jimmy, something I feel so Midwestern to me and I love it.
[00:33:10] And this guy is from Illinois. He’s like, I don’t know. I’m just like, this is my tribe. This is my Midwestern tribe. And I loved it.
[00:33:18] Well, and really I mean, to me, to McGyver, something is complex. It’s like you’re you’re creating this thing out of, you know, paper clips and baling water.
[00:33:27] But it’s like it. Did MacGyver know what he’s tricking NASA?
[00:33:30] What I’m saying is to MacGyver is a big, complex thing. But what he was saying was specifically that it was like pretty like he kind of the equivalent of hit it with a wrench, like he was kind of hacking it to to stay. You don’t know what you’re on. You don’t know what he did. And in that same spirit, I I have a note here that I really appreciate. When he’s trying to trick the oxygenates into pulling the oxygen out, he tries all these sophisticated things. He’s going to, like, pry it open and hack the operating system or, you know, all these things. And finally, he just has to like tape bags over the sensors like it’s not you know, the solution here is not some big complicated thing I love. Again, just like the fact that Indiewire resisted the urge to make Mark Watney a super hero who knew everything. He also resisted the urge to make every solution brilliant. Sometimes you just need a bag over the sensor. And, you know, there’s a moment in the in the BBC Sherlock series where Sherlock gets tricked by Moriarty specifically because Sherlock always expects everything to have a clever solution. And this wasn’t clever, and so it was like a blind spot for Sherlock, because this is a very simple thing and Sherlock was looking for some big, complex thing. And so I really appreciate that, Andy. We are gives us that. He gives us that. Like, you know what? This is a guy who is really smart in science, but he’s not head in the clouds. Sometimes you just got to hit it with a wrench and that’s good enough.
[00:34:58] OK, so I’ve read a couple of things about the voice of this that I’d like to add that. So at one point he says there are four different safety interlocks that prevent the regulator from letting the oxygen content get too low. But they’re designed to work against technical faults, not deliberate sabotage. BWA ha ha. End quote. Yes, and. His spelling of wahaha is not normal because he put spaces in it, yeah, well, like when you when are you texting people, those who aren’t aware?
[00:35:30] Lacey’s reading the book with her eyes. And I’m doing the audio books. Yes.
[00:35:34] So, you know, I just I love how people have different ways of messing with the written word, especially because we text all the time like we have a friend who when he sends you something that he’s laughing, he doesn’t write lol. He doesn’t do hahaha without spaces. No, no this man does ha space ha space ha. And it drives me crazy because it sounds really condescending. It sounds like ha ha true. You know like and I just, I’m like if I’m watching this stop it. You know who you are. But like I just this is like my mom loves the word funner. I hate it. It drives me crazy. I know. I know now. Yeah. We can talk anymore. Know you have to pretend not to notice. But she thinks that should be a real word. She has decided this to be fair. I don’t actually disagree. Right, exactly. That ought to just be a word. I know it’s not. But why not. Why not? And and that’s her take on. It is like this is a stupid rule that we have. So I’m making my own. Yeah. Which is very much my mother. And what I’m my mother’s daughter and and we all have our little hills that we will either die on or not realize. Our our our hills like mine is in quotation marks.
[00:36:55] I like when you’re quoting something, if if your ending with a period Vandeweghe grap for saying funner is great. I’ll see.
[00:37:04] Jay Grave has your mom’s back. He does. Unlike you. Unlike me. Thank you Jay. If you would be a better son in law than I am.
[00:37:17] We don’t know this man. We just know that funner is excuse me, we don’t know this group. We don’t. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah.
[00:37:25] So like my the hell, I will die on if when things are in quotes. I like the the punctuation to be on the outside of the quote, unless it’s part of the quote. And I have my marketing director who we will get into arguments about this. She’s just wrong and so are the rest of Americans who do this incorrectly.
[00:37:44] Agreed, Heather. Also, if you’re watching Iran.
[00:37:47] Oh, you agree with me on this? Yeah, I didn’t know that.
[00:37:51] Yeah, I just fell in love with you a little bit more. Sorry. Great. So anyway, this is Jacob’s attempt to steal. My marriage is finally coming apart. Found my nemesis. Anyway, so anyway, I just like the little quirk here. Yeah. The the Bahat and the Jimmi and yes they’re just. They’re good.
[00:38:18] There are good moments of voice in this, and I just keep looking to Andy Weir and saying I’m feeling like he does such an excellent job of doing it, which is it’s going to be interesting to watch the other side of the story and seeing if everybody or specific people get really good voices if their voices. You have a note about that. You you won’t they won’t be quite as strong because it’s not first person. Yeah. And I feel like that is just different.
[00:38:47] But we’ll see on that same sort of note. My last note here for Chapter five is I really like this thing that he does over the course of the book where he, you know, he’s very careful with his rations and he’s giving himself like half rations. You know, you have to remember that this entire story is taking place and he’s literally starving. You know, he’s eating like half as much as was allotted for him each day. He’s desperately trying to grow food. You know, later in the story, they’re going to be desperately trying to get him more food. It’s all about this. But you know what? Every once in a while, he’s like, I’m having a full portion, like, you know, I earned it today. I just I’m having more food than I am allotted. And I know that that’s not great. But I earned it. And I just it just it keeps tying back to I love that he’s not a superhero. He’s not just this is exactly what I need to do to survive. And so that’s what I’m going to do to survive. It’s like every once in a while and I blew myself up today. I’m having some extra food.
[00:39:49] But we all he is like I came up with a really all I did today was come up with a plan that’s likely to kill me. I am doing a portion which is a quarter portion. Yeah. So, you know, he he balances it out in a way that feels very real. Yeah.
[00:40:03] And and very human. Like very sort of forgiving of his, of his flawed nature. Yes. Yeah.
[00:40:11] Um I like where he ends with this as usual. I like how the chapter ends. Yeah. Which is to say he says that he says I’m reluctant to hang out and I have that has a history of exploding for no good reason. It exploded for a very good reason. You just don’t know what it is.
[00:40:29] You were the reason, Mark, it exploded because of you. It exploded from watching you.
[00:40:37] So, yeah. Chapter six we have I don’t know what the word was. I learned it from watching you like a teenager slams the door. Yeah. Anyway, uh, so chapter six, we have a major shift in perspective. Yes. We are no longer following Marwan. We are no longer on Mars at all. All of a sudden, this is a third person novel about a whole bunch of different people living on Earth. And Mindy Kaling. Uh, well, but in my head, it’s about Mindy Kaling. Before that, it’s about, uh, then I think, uh, but one of the things that I really I really hope I can find or maybe one day when we meet Andy, where I can ask him is I wonder how hard this was? Because you have to remember that this book was written as a blog. He was releasing a chapter by chapter and he had established a pattern that we are reading the diary of our main character. And then all of a sudden. We’re not anymore, and we’re following these characters that nobody’s ever met a lot, most of them nobody’s ever heard of. We’ve heard about the crew of the Aries three, but we had never heard about the administrators back at Mass. So we don’t know these characters. We haven’t we haven’t built up to them at all. And it’s a total shift in not just the story, but in the structure of the story. We’re shifting from a first person narrative to a third person narrative. And I just a part of me wonders if this is something that Andy Weir was like wrestling with for a while, trying to figure out like, was there any way to tell this story that I can stick to my format? And then this was like a big compromise, or was this something that he was, like, really looking forward to, like getting out of Mark Whatley’s head for, like you were talking about just to keep it from getting stale? Yeah, I just there’s something I’m curious how this happened, because it is such a sudden and stark change.
[00:42:20] It’s not like Game of Thrones where every chapter you’re just somebody else said, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a good question. Um, we’ll have maybe we’ll have to see if it’s in an interview somewhere, because I’m sure somebody asked him. It’s been out for years.
[00:42:32] Exactly. Or maybe we can get him on this show. Um, it is we are pivoting suddenly from science to PR. We are immediately the first conversation is, you know, I don’t want to take photos of the Aries three landing site because there’s going to be Mark Watney is dead body and we don’t want to broadcast that to the world, all of this kind of stuff. But it’s still so smart. You know, we’re not talking about science anymore. We’re talking about PR. But it’s still very clever how these different characters are interacting and what each of them is working towards and the different things that you might not immediately think of. Yeah, we want to take a picture of of the areas three site, except. Oh, how would that play? And, you know, oh, well, OK. If it plays badly then maybe we can make it about bringing his body back and you know, the different jockeying for different and developing tech, because this is why you’ve been keeping me from the satellites for months.
[00:43:26] Like this is for a month. I guess it would be. But this is so unacceptable. You know, I’m surprised he didn’t think of it himself. It seems like a pretty brilliant man.
[00:43:37] So I was. But but he’s a scientist, not an administrator. And I think that’s the difference in perspective here. And that’s actually a running theme, I think, in this whole chapter is we’re introduced to four new characters and each one of them has a very different perspective and a very different take. One of them is a is an administrator. He’s basically a white collar, you know, like a government employee. One of them is a project lead from Mars operations. So he’s a leader. But in a science way, Mendi is so that deep science. Yeah, she’s she’s there with his hands on the keyboard.
[00:44:11] She’s a mechanical engineer who regrets taking this job because it’s boring.
[00:44:16] Exactly. And then, lady, later we get introduced to Annie Montreaux, who is marketing. She’s from a completely different perspectives, public relations.
[00:44:24] And she can’t stop swearing. And it makes me so happy.
[00:44:27] And that’s one of the things that I have noted here, is I love how each of these characters is differentiated. You know, we’ve been given this one lead who is so charming and so smart and so upbeat, but still human and so sort of perfectly rounded out that it would be easy to imagine that Andy Weir might be sort of like another Aaron Sorkin. And don’t get me wrong, I adore Aaron Sorkin. But Aaron Sorkin’s characters don’t live on this planet. They are. They’re all from some other world where everybody is perfectly eloquent and perfectly smart and perfectly everything, perfectly loyal. And like, you know, he has a very distinct voice. I remember somebody when I was in high school, my theater teacher talking about Shakespeare and how he’s this incredible writer. But he doesn’t do everything right. He doesn’t do time. Write characters will say, hey, this is going to happen tomorrow and then it’ll happen in like an hour. And he doesn’t write women. Well, all of his female characters talk like dudes like Juliet is a fourteen year old girl and she talks like a forty five year old man. And, you know, and that’s fine. Like, you know, he didn’t happen to have that one tool in his belt. That’s fine. But I so appreciate that. Andy Weir, does each one of these characters talks differently? They think differently. They have a completely different perspective.
[00:45:44] And just the way they relate to each other is also well in the middle sized two of the characters, because we’re not introduced to just four characters. We’re introduced to six because we also meet Chuck and Maurice. Oh, yes. Chuck and Maurice are two scientists who are absolutely straight out from the two peas in a pod. Scientists in better off Ted. Yes, they like. And I’m there. I’m sure that there are plenty of other examples that we could come up with of the two in the pod. But just like bickering all the time, bickering and correcting each other. Oh, my God. Yes, it’s charming. It’s charming. It’s I’m also like. I follow their managers train of thought, which is you guys are annoying the shit out of me, like just get to the point, like, I understand 14, 17 doesn’t matter. Just get to the point.
[00:46:35] Yeah, but we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Mindy, Mindy. So we have this conversation between the administrators and then all of a sudden we cut to Mindy. And the note that I, I jotted down was somehow demystifying NASA makes it even cooler that she’s sitting here and she’s like, why did I take this job? Like, this is so boring?
[00:46:56] I’m just sitting here handling satellites and the satellites handle themselves and I’m really just emailing people when satellite images come in. Yeah. And yet somehow it’s still cool. Yeah. I feel like I imagine a very meek Mindy Kaling and I enjoy it. And if anybody tries to take this away from me, I will beat you because I figure if Martinez can be played by the actor who’s a thief and man, that my Mindy can be Mindy Kaling, just putting it out there because.
[00:47:28] Well, I’ll be interested to see how you feel about Mindy in the movie, because she’s definitely not that meek. They make her a little bit. I mean, she’s still like an underling. She’s not going to get in anybody’s face, but she’s a little more assertive. I don’t I actually really enjoyed the character in the book because she’s kind of like she kind of goes from bored to intimidated by her boss to holding back tears in a way that is not at all condescending to her character. Like she discovered something that is overwhelming and she is overwhelmed by it.
[00:47:58] And also like this. I mean, I would cry, too. Yeah, I mean, personally, because this is this is the moment that they discover that Mark Watney is alive and they you know, the day before they had his memorial and all of the all of the crew members gave their eulogies. And like, the only person who didn’t give one was Vinnick.
[00:48:22] And he just he was like, why? Why what, Venkat? Oh, well, Indian guy Venkat Kapoor.
[00:48:28] Oh, I did not write his name down. I apologize for getting that wrong. Uh, OK.
[00:48:33] Well, and for those of you who may have only watched the movies, Venkat Kapoor was adapted by Chiwetel Ajay for As Vincent Kapoor and they actually reference at one point they ask a character, asks him if he’s religious, and he says that his mother was Hindu and his father was Baptist. I think which is just a little indication of the fact that they’ve cast a black guy to play an Indian character. So that’s where Venkat Kapoor became Vincent Kapoor.
[00:49:01] Well, I. I mean, that actor can pretty much do no wrong, in my opinion. Yeah.
[00:49:06] Um, but anyway, I think this is the point at which we discover that he’s alive. And what I’m what I’m interested to hear is how do you feel about their initial decision to not tell the crew?
[00:49:22] To be honest, I wrestle with it, I don’t really I mean, like on the one hand, it’s kind of weird to say, but I feel like if I had been in the room, I would have disagreed with whoever spoke first. Like like if you if you if somebody says we need to not tell them, I would have been like, are you kidding me? We have to tell them. And if somebody had said, well, we should tell them immediately, I would have been like, well, hold on a minute, let’s talk this through, because it is such a big deal. It is such a big these these these people are going to be devastated by the fact that they left him behind.
[00:49:53] I want to know what the what the therapist said, what the you know, because there’s there’s someone there who has looked at all of this crew and has voiced and through like, what’s the what’s what’s that person have to say about it? Because it doesn’t feel like that person has been asked. And I think it’s really important that they do get out.
[00:50:15] You know, at the end of the day, I feel like the distinguishing factor is sort of along the lines of when Captain America Civil War first came out, there was this huge conversation around, are you on Team Iron Man or are you on Team Cap? Do you agree that superheroes should have should be like regulated or not? And some people argued passionately on one side and some people argued passionately on the other. And the way I always saw it was it sort of depends on how you see this universe, because if this is a comic book universe, then obviously you trust Captain America. He’s going to do no wrong. Like he’s Captain America. He’s perfect. Of course, you just listen to him and you get out of his way. But if this is a realistic universe, there’s no way on this planet that somebody from the 1930s should be trusted to do whatever he wants and not even have to explain why. And so it all just comes down to, do you view this as a comic book universe or as a realistic universe? And that’s kind of how I think this question gets answered for me, is if this is a book where I expect that the hero is going to get rescued by the end, you tell them. But if this is real life and he’s probably going to starve to death, you don’t want those five people locked in a tin can for 10 months while their best friend is slowly dying because they left him there like that would just be so awful, looking down the barrel of not only did he die, he’s dying now.
[00:51:44] He’s dying slowly. I mean, like that’s so something about there’s something about not letting people be responsible for their own feelings and emotional reactions that I’m like that. Really? Oh yeah. It’s like freaks me out. Yeah, it’s bad. It’s just it’s a tough call.
[00:52:02] One of the one of the arguments here is, you know, space is dangerous and we need them to be focused. And there’s a part of me that’s like these are still professionals. These and and yes, emotions can cloud their judgment. There’s no denying that. But you take care of them and you do the best for them and you allow them to have an emotional reaction, because I think it would be devastating. And I don’t know, I just feel like there would be trauma and not being told while the literally the rest of the world would know.
[00:52:37] So I don’t know. I just feel like let people be responsible for their own emotions.
[00:52:43] We do have a comment here from Soulis.
[00:52:48] So let’s say I apologize for not pronounce your name correctly because I’m quite confident I did not pronounce your name correctly. But what Alex and Lisa be bored working at NASA. No, no, no, for me, it depends entirely on what my job is, if I had Mindy’s job, I would absolutely sure like if I get to be Venkat, if I get to basically be Elon Musk or, you know, whoever is sort of leading the charge, then no way I would take that job in a second.
[00:53:19] But I mean, there are a lot of people at NASA whose whole job is just working spreadsheets.
[00:53:24] I mean, yes, that’s true. But like, give me the job of being an astronaut. And I would I would listen, the adventure would be overwhelming. Tell me I’m going to Mars and all of my work would be about not showing my superiors that I’m terrified. And so I would not be allowed to be bored because I would be so emotionally engaged, just like this woman is really uptight. Yeah, well, she didn’t seem this uptight when we when we took her on. Oh.
[00:53:54] Speaking of funny reactions at NASA, by the way, I think it’s time that we bring onto the stage any mantras with the funniest just opening line ever. Like for me right up there with Mark Watney is opening line of the book, which is I’m absolutely fucked.
[00:54:14] And she just you know, we’ve been given the administrator who’s very practical. We’ve been given Venkat, who’s very sort of aspirational. We’ve given Mendi who’s just sort of trying to deal with what’s going on. And then we’re given Annie, who’s just like, I love you fucking kidding me. Just like, do you understand the shit storm that is coming toward us right now and just so absolutely relatable in her own unique way.
[00:54:41] So can I can I have a downer moment, you guys? I’m a really, really big optimist and I love humans. I’m not one of those people who generally walks around and is like people are stupid. Yes. Yes. Every so often. But it’s kind of rare for me because I really like people.
[00:54:57] OK, but. But at one point.
[00:55:03] We we hear that everybody’s coming together and offering all of you know, we’re all of their support and and I’m I’m sitting here going one man, one is stuck alive on Mars. And NASA is getting support from all sectors. And I’m like, B.S., look at 2020. No way there is a McConnell or a Lindsay out there that is pulling strings because they have some nefarious plot to screw everyone over. And absolutely this does not happen. 20/20 has burned this belief to the ground.
[00:55:40] I will I will pick up the baton of defending the world from really loud. Yes. It is not cause because Apollo 13 like this is clearly the inspiration appeal anymore.
[00:55:55] I said it, you know, are you being optimistic and bring back.
[00:56:01] So one of the things in this we jumped ahead of one note that I have, which is I really appreciated the fact that even among these people sitting at NASA.
[00:56:14] There being scientific, it’s you get this whole conversation, I actually get two consecutive conversations where somebody sits down in front of a monitor and says, OK, prove it to me like you think he’s alive. Prove it. Walk me through. Here’s where the rover was. Maybe they didn’t mention that they moved it here. You know, the solar panels are clean. They could have been cleaned by wind. And it just walks you through how to answer the question.
[00:56:38] And it’s just I love that this top keeps bringing about tents and there’s no body, and yet they prove it.
[00:56:44] Don’t tell me what you think. Don’t tell me what you guess. Don’t tell me what you hope. Prove it. Yeah. And that is the strength.
[00:56:51] That was one of my questions is how how did you feel about I loved that moment of someone putting together it’s a little Sherlock moment of. Well, one of the rovers is like facing the wrong direction for the hose to get to it or whatever cable to get to it. And it’s like, oh, that would never have been done on purpose. Yeah. And except for we have all of these other little nuggets of information and none, none of them are individually a smoking gun.
[00:57:22] But taken together, the likelihood that he’s not alive is getting smaller and smaller.
[00:57:26] And and I love that. I love that. One of the things that is said here is we’ve got four different ways of communicating. Why can’t we communicate? Like, how did all four get taken away from us? And they’re like, well, all four are funneled through the map. Yeah. And it’s like, oh, so we don’t actually have four different ways of communicating. We have one. Yeah. And and it broke. And it broke. Well no it’s gone.
[00:57:51] Well that what three of them were through the MAV and one of them was on the hab and the one on the hab broke so.
[00:57:57] Right. OK, so um yeah. Because they, they even give the odds of like what are the odds of that happening. And someone says, well based on empirical evidence it’s one in three.
[00:58:08] Yeah. Because it’s Aries one, two and three and it happened on one of them. So three tests and one at one time it happened. Well I guess you know, yeah. I do love those two scientists arguing among themselves and I absolutely love they’re trying to describe how strong a radio would have to be to get a signal to Mark. And they they describe it as melting pigeons strong, which is just gross.
[00:58:34] You get this image of like a giant death ray from a from a James Bond film, like trying to beam a message to Mars and just burning everything in its path.
[00:58:44] Uh, new hole in the ozone layer.
[00:58:47] Yeah, exactly. I will say, I mean, this whole series of episodes is basically just praising anywhere. But I really am impressed by somebody who is smart enough not only to come up with how do you solve this problem? How do you keep this character alive? How do you get him back home step by step in every way. But Andy Weir is actually like six or seven times because he keeps coming up with other ways that he could have saved him. You know, in this chapter where given this like well, I mean, the Aries four crew could land at the Aries three site and then use the MTV to kind of hop over to their landing site. And it’s really risky, but it could work and it’s like. You just solved the problem again, like as a writer, you just wrote a whole other book of how this could have gone and God, what a genius it takes to not only solve the problem, but solve it nine different ways, nine different ways, but then to also poke holes.
[00:59:45] And in his own theory. Yeah. Um, I, I love this guy.
[00:59:51] Yes, you can you can write a lot more. You know, we had Joss Whedon for a long time of going like, oh this is this ah. Nerd guy that we love and you know, we still do. But, you know, he’s got his problematic things and so we need more anywhere’s. Yeah, please. I’m here for it. Like if more sci fi was written by Andy Weir, I’d read more sci fi drama.
[01:00:13] So, um, so my next note is about the last line of the chapter one. I’m good. I’m ready to go. Right. I love the ending of this chapter. It’s my single favorite moment in the entire book. And I was so crushed that they didn’t put it in the movie, but they did put it in one of the when they released The Martian, they they also made a series of short films that were about the astronaut training program before the Aries three mission. And it was like these sort of NASA documentaries of like Meet the Crew of the area’s three. And they they worked this line into one of those which I really appreciated, which is Venkat Kapoor is sitting at NASA, sort of looking up at the sky.
[01:00:58] And just talking about, like, how alone Mark Watney must feel and how overwhelmed and how stressful and just what is what does it do to somebody to be that alone? What must be thinking right now? And in the last line of the chapter is a log entry Soul 61. How come Aquaman can control whales, they’re mammals, it doesn’t make sense.
[01:01:24] End of chapter, and it’s just such a perfect summation of Mark Watney as a character, because not only is it funny, it’s also like kind of a good point, you know, like like it’s kind of a smart question in a funny way. And it just perfectly sums up who this guy is and why he’s the one that is actually going to make it through this. Yes. Well done. Well, though, so excellent. So that is it for this week. That is chapters four through six. We’re going to be picking up a Chapter seven next week. And Chapter seven brings us back to Mars. So we’ve introduced these characters on Earth and we’re leaving them behind and then we’re leaving them behind. We’re getting back to Mark Watney and starting to do some long term planning. We’ve been flying by the seat of our pants for a while, just trying to figure out how we’re going to make food and water. But now that we’ve got that locked down, let’s start talking about the long term plan.
[01:02:17] The potatoes are sprouting and the potatoes are sprouting, which is very exciting. It’s very exciting.
[01:02:22] So, yeah, that is going to be next week. We are going to be talking about chapters seven through nine or ten, probably. We’ll see how long they are. And yeah, I think that’s it for this episode. Any final thoughts?
[01:02:35] No, no. All right, you guys have a great night. Thank you for being with us. We will see you next week.
[01:02:42] There’s so much fun. Thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe and hit the bell and everything so you can get our future episodes.