The Martian Ch. 23-25: LAUNCH ME INTO SPACE IN A CONVERTIBLE, BABY! | The Synthesis

Get locked & loaded as we dissect Mark Watney’s slow decent deeper into the depths of Mars. We cruise through the drama of surviving on Mars while Lacey goes off about some pet peeves and Alex succumbs to her witchy charms!

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.

00:04 

Hey folks, and welcome to the synthesis. I’m Alexander Winn. 

00:08 

And I’m Lacey Hannan. And this is a show where we talk about science and entertainment. So get excited. Yes. 

00:16 

This week we are talking about chapters 23, 24 and 25 of The Martian by Andy Weir. 

00:24 

We have a little book club going through 

00:26 

this. But first we need to talk about the news of the day, which is the landing of the perseverance rover, it touchdown just a couple of hours ago on the surface of Mars, and I think that’s pretty cool. 

00:39 

I I don’t know who said it today. But it’s a it is a planet of robots, which I think is fantastic. I mean, in real life, it’s a planet of robots. And the Martian. It’s a planet of one one botanist, 

00:54 

one botanist. Yeah, I especially. So perseverance is cool for a lot of reasons. First off is it’s a rover on Mars. But it’s also the it’s carrying a helicopter that is going to try to be the first powered flight on another planet, which is cool. And especially tricky considering that Mars’s atmosphere is only half of 1% as thick as Earth’s. So 

01:19 

I heard today that the engines are based on 50 year old technology, like it was so good then, that they’ve just kind of reiterated a little bit, but it’s, it sounds like it’s pretty much the same thing, which I think is really cool. Like good on those scientists. 50 years ago. Yeah, I’m gratulations series. What was that? Like the 70s? 

01:40 

Yeah. The other thing that I really enjoy about the perseverance rover is where it got its name. Have you heard about the male perseverance? So they held a contest among K through 12 students all across the country to name the new rover and a seventh grade student named Alexander Mathur, in Virginia, just got the ring of trustworthiness and genius. He wrote, he wrote an essay about how other rovers on Mars Curiosity, insight, spirit, opportunity, these are all qualities that we possess as humans. But the most important thing, the thing that will take us into space is perseverance. That’s the actual trait. You know, before curiosity before insight before spirit before opportunity, you have to have perseverance. 

02:34 

Yeah, that’s all explorers have to have that. 

02:37 

Exactly. And I just that is such a great little. 

02:40 

Yeah. Nice little insight from a seventh grader. Good on you. That’s like 14 years old. Okay. smarty pants, 

02:47 

doing good. 

02:49 

I don’t really know what it plans on doing. 

02:54 

It’s going to do a lot of the stuff that Mars rovers often do. It’s going to look for signs of life, it’s going to look for signs of past life, it’s going to be that test to try to see if I can get something to fly. It’s going to do some chemistry tests to see about supporting human life, you know, see if it can produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere and things like that. Oh, yeah. paving the way for people like Mark Watney. terraforming. Yes. For terraforming ha 

03:20 

and in case you would ever like to try your hand at terraforming? Yes, we have a game for 

03:26 

terrigenesis on iOS, Android, and Windows. Not really good. I just had to be done. There was no there was no getting around it. No, 

03:35 

there wasn’t. 

03:36  

That being said. Let’s go ahead and jump on into the Martian. 

03:39 

Okay. I have a question. Question of the day. Listen. Okay, you guys, I just just to preempt the rest of the show. I’ve still got some major pregnancy congestion, so bear with me. And also a little bit of pregnancy brain where sometimes I don’t feel like doing the work. So Alex, why don’t you explain to us why what he’s doing with the solar panels and figuring out the dust storm and all that. 

04:10 

Yeah. So the problem that we face as we start chapter 23 is Mark Watney has been driving to skapar le crater in the rover, and the people from earth who can no longer contact him have seen from satellites that there is a giant dust storm heading Marc’s way. But he didn’t know that because dust storms are very gradual things you don’t really notice that the air is getting easier and easier until you’re in the thick of it. So they were worried that this might be the end of Mark because he might not be able to get power for his rover power for his life support through this dust storm because he’s powering everything from selection they should have known wasn’t going to be the case because there’s like eight more chapters after he enters the dust storm so of course he’s not going to die. None of these characters check to see how long the book is, but whatever. So Mark finally figures out that there is another Storm because he’s standing on the edge of a crater and he looks out and it’s super hazy that way. It’s not hazy that way. He sort of does the math, he realizes, hey, there’s a dust storm. But the problem is, he doesn’t know the shape of the storm. He knows that there is one he knows it’s that way. But he doesn’t know if it’s like, he knows it’s to the west, I think. But he doesn’t know if it’s to the northwest or the Southwest. He doesn’t know it goes to West. Okay, so east. So yeah, so it’s on the east. So he doesn’t know which way to go, should he go north around this crater or South around this crater, you know, he’s, he’s up against a crater, so we can’t go straight, which way to go, he doesn’t want to go the wrong way, in which case, the power loss is going to be even worse. Yeah. So he needs to figure out a way to measure the density of the dust storm at three different places. And then compare them. Okay. So the idea is, if you if you measure it here, you measure it here, and then you measure it here, you can compare the numbers or those who can’t see what his hands are doing. It’s 40 kilometers between panels, and it’s straight north to south exactly line three points 

06:07 

on a line, then you can get a sense that like, you know, if the northern one is a lot is is seeing a lot lower performance than obviously the dust storm is thicker to the north. And I’m not sure go south, if it’s the opposite, then he goes north, right. Okay, so what he does, you know, because there’s only one of him. And so his problem is that he can’t be in three places at once. And you have to measure it at three places at once. Because otherwise, the the information is invalid brainstorm, I’d be moving. So what he comes up with is, he’s going to drop three solar panels in three different places, or rather, drop two and then he will have one with him. And he takes a camera that is attached to the arm of the his spacesuit. And he just plugs the camera into the solar panels so that it has power. And he just records the whole day. So he doesn’t have to be there, he can just film it, and then go back and look at the tapes. 

07:04 

So there are two cameras and his in his extra he VA because he has to have his three cameras and he can be at one. He has 

07:13 

to have two cameras and then his eyeballs right third. So he he drops one with a camera, he drops another with a camera and then he drives to the third spot and just stands there and looks okay. And then he goes back, he records the the thing, the levels where he was and then he goes back collects the other two cameras checks the timestamp looks at what the levels were now 

07:33 

Do you remember why he needed the resistors? Because that was the other thing that I was like, What? I’m slowly reading this. 

07:40 

So without going into a whole lot of electrical engineering resistors basically reduce electrical current and turn it into heat. They’re basically deliberately inefficient. Okay, and so the problem is, if you just drop a camera on Mars, it’s going to freeze. Oh, yeah, cuz it’s really cold. Yeah, exactly. But what he knew was, he’s attaching this thing to a power source. And he’s not using the power for anything. He’s just checking to see how much power it is getting right. So he can just put a whole bunch of resistors together and basically make a heater. So he’s just going to string these things together, each one generates a tiny little bit of heat, but you can put so many of them together, that generates enough heat to keep the camera warm. 

08:21 

Okay, so the resistors are connected to the solar panel. So that the solar panel has it’s, it’s sort of putting out power. 

08:30 

Yeah, it’s putting out power to generate basic or to run basically a heater in a camera. Okay. Yeah, great. So that is where we pick up in chapter 23. is Mark is figuring this out, as he does going through the steps figuring out how to address this problem. And he’s thinking of the storm in terms of percent power loss. Yes, he knows that if the percent power loss drops below a certain point, he’s dead. And if it drops below a much higher point, he’s basically dead, because he won’t be able to get to the area’s foresight in time, 

09:02 

right. And by the last to be there at a very specific time. 

09:05 

Yes. And I love this, because this is one of those things that, you know, with the real science in the Martian, Andy Weir has built this world in which it feels like everything is just sort of inevitable. Everything is driven by physics, and not by story. And yet, what he has done by giving himself these physical, these physics based restraints, is that there’s a ticking clock. Yeah, he’s got what every great story needs to have in its third act, which is a deadline, because he has to get there they can’t slow down. And that is so perfect for the story. So he has to keep the power generation above a certain level in order to have enough time to get to Aries for so at this point in the story or, or the chapter we are, he goes into talking about how much he hates potatoes, and I have a question for everybody. Is there anything In this world that you hate as much as Mark Watney hates potatoes. 

10:06 

I would I put this question to you? 

10:10 

Yeah. My answer is J grape. No, no, my I actually I thought of a better answer. Yes, I have a thing that I hate as much as Mark Watney hates potatoes. And that is when my phone autocorrects correctly spelled words. It drives me up a while you get so mad. Yeah, I will be writing a word. And I’ll write like so. And then it’ll, it’ll autocorrect it to do. And I’m like, No, I wrote. So because I want to write so why are you changing this word that is perfectly correct and perfectly common. into some other word. Just stop it. 

10:47 

I think that for me, it’s, there’s, there’s this. We see and design a lot like the core right now. trite sayings, trite phrases, live, laugh, love. Like, I hate them with an undying passion. And I don’t mind it if you have it in your house. Just don’t bring it in to mind. The right now the way that I’m encountering it the most often since I’m obviously not going to people’s homes is a dove chocolates. They’re, they’re delicious. They you open it up, and it’ll say something stupid, like, live laugh Dev. And I’m just like, oh, it contributed contributed to like, it says, Oh, that’s from dawn out of California. And you’re like, Oh, shut the fuck up. Dawn. 

11:50 

Yeah, it’s like, let’s take fortune cookies and make them worse. Yes, 

11:53 

exactly. I would rather you know, I remember when fortune cookies were good. Like the fortunes? Yeah. When we were kids were like funny or, you know, actually had a fortune or something. And now they’re kind of dumb. I would rather the dumb fortune cookies than the trite phrases. So yeah, I I get outraged. And I always read the dove sayings. And Alex is like, you don’t actually have to 

12:20 

read those. You can just eat the candy. You don’t actually have to unwrap it and read your candy. 

12:25 

I mean, I have to unwrap it. But I don’t. I don’t have to read I do have to it’s it’s a compulsion at this point. 

12:32 

You know, the thing that I like about this question, oftentimes people ask like, what do you hate as much as you know, like, what makes you want to kill people or whatever? And you know, they’ll answer like, Oh, you know, I hate fast food. And you’re like, you don’t hate fast food enough to kill people. 

12:46 

That that would make you you’d be in prison. 

12:49 

Yeah, but I like the fact that your question how much What do you hate as much as Mark Watney hates potatoes? You know, he’s still eating the potatoes. Like, he doesn’t hate them so much. He’s still he’s still consuming them. He’s just really annoyed by them. And so you can actually answer this question reasonably. 

13:06 

I don’t know. I think that he he might just absolutely hate them. But also, we just got a comment from Emad economists. So that hasn’t been 

13:20 

soflo trash panda weighed in and said broccoli. eemaan economists said zucchini is what she hates. And then she said I had to turn auto cucumber off on my phone because that annoyed me so much. Listen, yeah, that’s, that’s a mana economist you can stay. This is why we keep 

13:43 

like to that. 

13:45 

Like literally made lasica. For those for those who can’t see the video here she is literally dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. 

13:53 

That was so good. Now, okay, on this topic, Mark says that when he if he gets back to Earth, obviously when if he ever returns to Earth, he’s buying a place in Western Australia because it’s on the opposite side of Earth from Idaho. And I’m just saying for a scientist, he was very imprecise about this. Because he’s wrong. It is not Western Australia. It is the Okay, so the antipodal point of not Yeah, I had to I had to pick a specific place. I couldn’t just use Idaho as a whole and Idaho’s rather large. So I picked I picked Blackfoot, Idaho because it’s the county seat of Bingham County, which produces the most potatoes in Idaho. fun little fact, it produces as many potatoes as Maine does. On the whole. 

14:44 

I know nobody cares how much research you did and it’s reminding me why I’m married you. 

14:50 

So I put in Blackfoot, Idaho and the antipodal point of Blackfoot is actually just out in the ocean somewhere but the closest city would be a port of francais of the French Southern territories. Which is, it is like I think straight north of Australia, but like, quite a ways away. So I would just like to point out that Mark was not as precise 

15:18 

mark. brilliant man and a dumb. 

15:23 

No, I didn’t say that. I did not say that. I said that. Okay, whatever. So 

15:30 

Oh, so he Yes. He goes 

15:32 

on to talk about something else that is driving him crazy. And it also drives me crazy. 

15:37 

Okay, go ahead. 

15:38 

He is driving the same path three times. And that sort of in an inefficiency is one of my least favorite things. 

15:47   

I think that’s that’s one of those very insightful pieces of writing where he talks about, you know, how when you miss your exit on the highway, and you have to drive to the next exit, and you hate every second of it, because you know, that you’re just going to have, you’re getting further and further away from your goal. That, yeah, I felt that. Yeah, I think everybody knows what that feels right, 

16:07 

inefficiency. And it’s not just in driving. But oftentimes, it is it it, like eats away at my soul, I think of like, if my soul had edges, and it would just started burning away the edges of my soul. I think by the time I die, there will be nothing left, because inefficiency makes me rage out that much. So just in case, so I guess I have two 

16:36 

that that I hate as much as markets. And they’re both a little goofy. But I can’t help myself. I can’t help myself. Oh, man. 

16:47 

So he is he measures the three points and he’s able to figure out good news. The storm is to the north, which is what he was hoping because he’s traveling south. This is another example as we’ve talked about before, of when you base everything on real science, and you make it make sure that everything makes sense. You get to throw yourself a bone every once in a while and it’s totally believable. Yeah, we totally buy this is not contrived writing. You know, it was a 5050 shot anyway. And it happened to break his way. Thank God. Yeah. And it just it works. And I love it so much. These are the kinds of things that I wish that I could just like sit Hollywood executives down and just like tape their eyelids open and make them watch so that they would stop doing stupid things and movies, cliches, yes. 

17:34 

His next thing is he goes on to talk. So he decides his route, and how he’s going to quickly get there. And he’s going to drive due south for a while. Because he has to get around this. Yeah, this crater well, and just get away from the storm. He needs to be heading southeast. But he’s just going to go straight south for a long time to try to get away from the storm because he needs the power. Yeah. 

17:56 

And then he’s going to travel essentially do E’s. Yeah. To get to the Huskers go, whatever. I don’t know how to pronounce this cap rally. skapar rally. Yeah, I know someone named scarpelli. So that’s where my head goes. 

18:11 

But yeah, he’s basically making a triangle instead of going straight there. He’s going yeah, one way and then taking a right angle. And he mentions one of my favorite lines in today’s chapters. He says for every 90 kilometers of travel, he’s only making 37 kilometers of progress, because Pythagoras is a dick. And I just I just love that so much. 

18:33 

I detail it was 

18:36 

that and the next moment where he talks about reading Agatha Christie, that I just loved these two moments back to back first of all, Pythagoras is a dick and then he puts his murder his murderer prediction on paper. That takes a lot of guts because 

18:53 

I’m not I’m a guy who does crosswords and pen Yeah, 

18:56 

and I was sitting there going I didn’t know you were such a gambler you know because this is I am not a person who I cannot stand being wrong so while I often guess you know we’re we’ll watch procedural or a murder mystery or whatever I will often guess who it is and I’m often rate I’m pretty good at it. But I don’t like to I don’t like to tell anybody if if I’m wrong, I’m gonna feel foolish which is dumb like that’s not that’s Alex doesn’t make me feel that way. I will tell Alex who I think it is. But I will tell almost nobody else. The only i the only time I remember recently being wrong was knives out, which was a really well done movie. 

19:39 

So he does mention, you know, he says at one point who knows how far south this storm goes, and I it was very humorous because I immediately thought, everyone knows who you are the only human alive right now who doesn’t know how far south this goes. Everyone on earth knows. They just can’t tell you. But he gets a very interesting opportunity, which is, which is a great little moment, he realizes that he’s going to be passing pretty close to the opportunity rover. And that is very interesting. You know, he’s already cannibalized one rover to talk to NASA. And here’s an opportunity to do another he could get a heads up if there’s any other obstacles in his way. There’s a lot of reasons to do it, he ends up not doing it. And I like the way he says that he says, I’ve defiled enough future historical sites for now. Yeah. Which is a great because I actually really appreciate that, like I love, you know, preserving historical sites. It’s very, you know, sort of important. But I also like the fact that he just tosses it out, like, he’s not going to defile this historical site, as if the entire route that he’s driving isn’t one giant historic, you know, like, as soon as there are people living on Mars, there’s going to be like an annual, you know, long distance jog along the Mark Watney route. Yes, every single spot he did a urine dump is gonna have a flag next to it. Like he is making history, every single step he takes, and he’s just like, No, I’m gonna leave the rover. We’re gonna need something for the people to look at. Like, like, man, man, you’ve made so many of these already. Yeah, 

21:13 

I think he calls it the Mars highway. One was one. Yeah. 

21:20 

Which I liked. Now. I need. I think actually, NASA has one. And I meant to bring it today. And I’m sorry that I didn’t. I will bring it next week. You guys. There is. Apparently NASA made a map of Mark Watney his rounds. Yes. And you can find it. Right. You didn’t tell me that? Did I not tell you you needed to tell me that? No. Oh. 

21:49 

But yeah, you can look it up his exact route. You know, Andy, we’re being Andy Weir. He mapped it out. Well, Andy 

21:55 

Weir has one and a NASA has one. Oh, I think they’re two different ones. And then I think the one on on the NASA website, I think that you can, like plan your own trip. Yeah. Which I think is hysterical. NASA’s This is actually pretty funny when it comes to 

22:10 

that sort of thing. They’re cute little things a lot. Yes. By the way, an interesting fact about Mars. That is intriguing. Anybody who has played terrigenesis will know that Mars if you were to terraform, it is not like Earth in the sense that it’s got multiple broken up continents. Mars would have one giant ocean that dominates the northern hemisphere, and then the whole southern hemisphere basically be dry land. And one of the interesting things that that allows is something they talked about in the Mars trilogy. Once they’ve terraform to the planet enough for people to actually breathe out on the surface. There is an annual competition of people who jog around the world. They it’s a long distance running competition, a long distance, you know, ultra ultra marathon? Yeah, exactly. ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra marathon, as you run around the entire planet Mars, which is just such a cool tradition that could only exist on Mars, you can’t do that on Earth. 

23:10 

So one of the reasons that he doesn’t go to opportunity, is he realizes that he believes he will get to the map. Yeah, it’s another psychological milestone. Again, I’m going to start harping on psychological milestones, because I think we should set them for ourselves because goals are good man. And we don’t talk about mental goals. So he does that. And I love this for him. I love that he, he realizes I really think I’m gonna get there. Yeah. Which is great. I was so annoyed that we didn’t get to see NASA’s reaction to seeing him outside of the storm, because we know that they lose us. And we don’t get to. That was a missed opportunity. Yeah, we didn’t see what I did. 

24:00 

Yeah, I did. It was very obvious. 

24:03 

Yeah. That’s called opportunity. Okay. 

24:06 

So I think they did miss this window. To tell us how everybody was relieved. We know everybody would be relieved. But I just want to know what people have to say about it. Like, yeah, what does Annie say about it? What is Mindy say? Anyway, 

24:25 

so he gets to skapar rally, and he decides that he’s going to enter it the next day. And then we get a delightful little line where he declares because he’s going to be going down. He’s going to be dropping elevation a lot going into this massive crater. He talks about how tomorrow morning, I’m going to be at rock bottom. Now, tomorrow, I’m going to be I’m going to descend to a whole new low and he just keeps riffing on it. I’m going to be in skapar Ellie’s favorite hole, and it’s, I appreciate it. Those are the kind of dad jokes that I’m here for. 

24:56 

Listen, we went to a place in in New Zealand. called Jack’s blowhole with some friends of ours Jack’s blowhole is amazing. Thank you very much. 

25:06 

Jack’s blowhole is awesome. It’s in the catlins in southern New Zealand that anybody who goes to New Zealand should visit Jack’s blowhole because then you’ll get to come home and tell people that you visited Jack’s blowhole. 

25:21 

Okay, so 

25:23 

yeah. And then at the very end of this chapter, 

25:27 

we scary exposition again, I’m developing like an exposition phobia from this book whenever you cut away from Mark Watney or the people on earth, and you start getting a third person narration. Yeah. Oh, it gets scary. 

25:40 

So it seemingly seemed like a geological history. Yeah. Yeah. But no, no, it’s about mark two. And suddenly, we see Yeah, the traveler is how the narrator the narrative just talks about him. We see that he hits some soft ground. And after after being on you know, this, this harder surface, and he flips the rover. 

26:13 

Yep. And is a scary thought. 

26:16 

Yes. And, of course, NASA is gonna be horrified. 

26:20 

Yep. talks about how the solar panels get spilled like a deck of cards. And he, the torque rips apart the rover and the trailer and then he rolls and rolls and rolls rips them apart from each other not. 

26:33 

Yeah, not, not in half. But yeah, rips them separate. And yeah, it’s a pretty brutal fall. And that brings us to chapter 24. 

26:44 

At which point, because this is going to be probably the last opportunity that I have to force Alex to do with me. didn’t want to miss that opportunity. 

26:52 

Oh my god, shut up. 

26:55 

Love you stop. Um, 

27:00 

I’m going to make him read this Convo with me because it’s, again, so well written. And you’re going to play ven cat. And I’m going No, wait, hold on. Is it Venkat and, Mitch, who is it? Hold 

27:15 

on, hold on. 

27:16 

We’re gonna get there. Just 

27:18 

Just give me a second God, 

27:20 

you know that nobody is rushing you right now. 

27:23 

I don’t want to talk about Oh, it’s a little bit further along. You can start you can. 

27:28 

Alright. So we pick up on Earth as the as they are reacting to the rover flipping and that is just got to be rough. That is, you know, to have him get so close to the end and then you don’t know if he’s okay. And like probably isn’t, you know, like this is he flipped his trailer. This is you know, there’s so many things that could have gone wrong. And yeah, that would be a very scary moment. 

27:54 

Yes. 

27:55 

This is by the way a sequence that got cut from the movie that isn’t they never did it in the movie is the the dust storm and rolling the rover, which is a shame because it would have been very spectacular. But yeah, it would have been good to see in the movie The people reacting to this Marlon. 

28:10 

So and he talks about like the you know, NASA talks about how the rover is designed to handle a role. And Mark talks about how he was thrown around quite a bit but he thankfully wasn’t hurt. 

28:25 

He says like curled into a ball and coward because that’s the kind of action hero I am. Which is a great line. 

28:31 

Yep. And then we cut back to NASA. You ready for this? Alex? Right. Okay. So again, yeah, let’s let’s not just do the dialogue, like read the read the descriptive bits. Oh, yeah. Okay, hold on. We got to get our mics closer together because this is okay. Okay. 

28:49 

All right. Your Monday. 

28:50 

Yeah. Monday read the Morse code aloud. Rolled fixing now. What? 

28:56 

That’s it been cat said over the phone. 

28:58 

That’s all I said. She reported cradling the phone as she typed out an email to the list of interested parties. 

29:05 

Just three words. Nothing about his physical health, his equipment, his supplies. 

29:09 

You got me? She said. He left a detailed status report. I just decided to live for no reason. 

29:16 

Funny. Venkat said, Be a smartass to the guy seven levels above you at your company. See how that works out? 

29:22 

Oh, no. Mandy said I might lose my job as an interplanetary boy year. I guess I’d have to use my master’s degree for something else. 

29:32 

I remember when you were shy. 

29:34 

I’m space Papa Razzi. Now the attitude comes with the job. 

29:37 

Yeah, yeah, just send the email 

29:39 

already sent. 

29:41 

Yeah, nice. 

29:42 

I like that she 

29:43 

calls yourself spade spots 

29:44 

or paparazzi it’s just so good. 

29:47 

You know, there’s a thing that I was actually thinking about in this chapter, which is in in writing in screenwriting and Novel Writing. there’s a there’s a belief among writers and they teach you this when you learn how to write is That it’s all about character growth, the character needs to change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story, they need to be a different person in some way. And that’s almost always true. There are some exceptions, I often point to Captain America as the exception that proves the rule 

because Captain America, the whole point of his character is that he doesn’t change over and over, he is confronted with the with a reason to change. And he holds his ground, he has exactly the same character in every movie as he is, in the opening scene of the first world changes around him. Exactly. He’s the guy who isn’t going to move. That’s his character. And, you know, interestingly, the Martian is kind of like that, like, this is a story about someone persevering. Perseverance. And not someone who changes really, I mean, like, obviously, you know, he changes in the sense of, of rising to the challenge. But this is the story of someone who is equipped to handle problems, not who has to change to, you know, sort of respond to problems. And so we don’t really get that, except with Mindy. Mindy is the one who grows over the course of this story. She is a different person than she was when we first met her, you know, Mitch, and the area’s three, crew and Mark, they’re all basically the same characters at the beginning and at the end, but Mindy has changed. 

31:21 

Okay, I’m gonna see if I can poke holes on that by the time we’re done with this. All right. I’d like to see if anybody else has changed. Let us know if you disagree. I mean, you’re welcome to disagree with him. He is not in fact, always right. 

31:37 

The woman who, like 10 minutes ago was talking about how much he hates to be wrong. I do hate to be wrong. So Mark sets about trying to flip his rover back over. Which is, by the way, another thing that I would have loved to have seen in the movie, because one thing that movies just don’t really do in space is depict lower gravity very much they depict zero G. And really, I think the expanse is the only time I’ve ever seen anybody tried to depict what it’s like to be in a lower gravity where you know, somebody pours a drink, and it takes longer, because it doesn’t come out as fast. I would love to see Mark Watney trying to flip his rover because on the one hand, it’s huge and heavy. But on the other hand, it’s in like, 1/3 gravity. Yeah. So he could probably do some sort of Superman kind of stuff. It would be interesting to watch. How much can you lift on Mars? 

32:29 

Yeah. I mean, I like the way he does it. Yeah. So he takes his murder drill. 

32:35 

Yep. And he has lucky cable 

32:38 

and his lucky cable, which I just think is another great indicator of his sense of humor, because his lucky cable is the longest cable and he specifically picks it for that reason. And this is the cable that he had attached to his murder drill that murdered Pathfinder, Pathfinder. So I just like that he he has a named these things or given them some sort of designation. And he’s he is still making do with them. Which is funny. He’s not superstitious, this man. Yeah. Because otherwise he would not be using that cable. But anyway, he takes to the murder drill, and he takes a drill bit and he goes out to a rock. And he does what, like half a meter he drills in half a meter. And then he takes the cable back that’s connected one and two, is connected to the drill. He connects the other end to the rover. And then he just starts pulling on the cable, which is very taut. And it helps him bring the the rover back down on to all of its wheels. Yes. 

33:46 

And he says he has Archimedes on his side. Yep. And I don’t know who Archimedes is. I’m Archimedes was from ancient Greece. He’s sort of the pioneer of simple machines, like very basic physics, how levers work and how pulleys work and that sort of thing. 

34:05 

I probably learned about this and like sixth or seventh grade, very likely. And I had Mr. Lemke who was really rude to me. So I mostly tuned him out in science class. So I feel like I should know this, but I don’t sorry, Mr. Lucky, you’re lucky. Dick. 

34:24 

Yeah, seriously. This is what you get. She doesn’t know what Archimedes is because you were announced. He does mention I there was a nice little cross connection here. Not that it was intentional. But in my head. He talks about drinking nothing tea, which is where you heat up water and you have nothing. And Lacey and I have been making our way through some TV shows recently and it occurred to me that you know who would enjoy nothing T is Ted lasso. Ted lasso is a fantastic show. on Apple TV, be sure to check it out. And it’s about an American who moves to England through various reasons, but one Other things that’s funny is he despises tea. He’s incredibly polite. He’s incredibly friendly, but just anybody who offers him tea he just doesn’t understand why anybody would drink this. It’s terrible. He would 

35:10 

like some really, really funny and sweet and if you are Brooklyn nine, nine fan or a good place fan, I think you would scrubs, 

35:18 

the showrunner of scrubs. So it has a similar kind of heart. 

35:22 

So he also says 

35:25 

he says something about buying beer for people when he gets back Oh, he’s gonna buy all the the guys help source and, and all of Bruce’s team. He’s going to buy them beers. And I thought it was really funny that he thought he was going to be buying anybody beers. Because if this man ever has, if this man gets back to earth and ever has to buy another beer in his life, yeah, I will lose. I would lose all faith in humanity. Yeah. 

35:52 

Ever buying another baby shouldn’t have to come though. Yeah, 

35:58 

he does. There’s a nice little moment where Mark has to go to horny jail, which I really appreciate. You know, bonk, go to horny jail. Because, you know, it’s literally been years since he has laid eyes on a woman. And by the way, the year before that was basically flying out to Mars where he wasn’t exactly hooking up with anybody. So I appreciated the the bit of humanity here that you know, like, he’s not a saint. He really, really, really just, it’s not just about survival. It’s also about getting laid. 

36:29 

Yeah. Now, is there a label for being attracted to aliens? Because I feel like Star Trek would have addressed? 

36:39 

Probably xeno sexual. Yeah. 

36:41 

So he’s okay. Yeah. 

36:43 

All right. I like that. 

36:47 

Yep. So we also talked about how light works differently on Mars. Yep. I enjoyed that. tidbit. Would you like to go over it? 

36:56

Yeah. So it’s actually even more extreme on the moon, which Andy Weir goes into in his novel, Artemis, which is great. But yes, also a great book, which is that there’s not as there’s not nearly as much air on Mars, the atmospheric pressure is half of 1% of Earth’s. And the lack of air means that there’s less stuff in the air, there’s less dust and just, you know, general things, which means that the light doesn’t diffuse as much. As soon as it gets dark. It’s dark, and the shadows are black. It’s not like Earth where the sunset takes an hour of gradually diminishing light. It’s like the sunsets and you are instantly in night like you round a corner. Yeah. And 

37:38 

you go from light to dark. 

37:39 

Yeah. And they talk in artemus, the main character is actually able to hide in shadows behind boulders from people who are pretty close by because it’s just pitch black in the shadows, because there’s no air to diffuse the light. 

37:53 

I hadn’t considered this the entire time we’ve been with Mark, which is like a year and a half at this point. And I thought it was I thought it was interesting that we’re just now hearing about it. I like that. I like that Andy Weir has he didn’t do all of the science upfront. Yes. You know, he didn’t Front Load it and then just tell you the story. He has been 

38:17 

given goosing it. Yeah, 

38:19 

yeah, rolling it out slowly. 

38:20 

And I just feel like that’s a that’s a good way to keep my interest. Because I probably would have been like, No, I’m not reading this. If it had all been front front loaded, for sure. But by by divvying it up, he has, he gives us these interesting tidbits throughout, which also, show show off Watney, his, his his genius, his brain, whatever. And this isn’t like this isn’t one of those intelligent Yeah, 

38:49 

this isn’t one of those pieces. That’s like a really big deal. It’s just not something that probably most of the audience has thought of. This is I’ve actually thought before, as much as I love live action adaptations of things like the Martian, or the expanse. I’ve actually thought before that what I would really love for somebody to tackle is an animated movie set on Mars or set on the moon. Because in an animated movie, you are able to change a lot more, you know, it’s totally understandable. You know, there are people who who sort of criticize, you know, Mars movies for filming in Morocco or filming in Arizona. And it’s like, you know, what are they going to do? Like, they’re not going to go to Mars to find it? Yeah, like, you got to do this. You know, it’s it’s impractical to film the whole thing on green screen, just because you didn’t want anybody to recognize that one mountain in the middle of nowhere, Morocco, like, come on. And you know, with the expanse, if you read the expanse books, they spend a lot of time on the float, as they call it in zero G where they’re moving through the rooms and through the hallways of their spaceship just floating. And in the TV show, they’re walking around, they they make much heavier use of mag boots where they are magnetically clamped to the ground and you just sort of like ignore the fact that their hair isn’t floating, whatever, they filmed it on Earth, it’s a TV show you move on. But this kind of thing, you know, the the low gravity level, the shadows on Mars, things like that would be so easy to do in an animated setting where you can just change the gravity level and all of your fluid site simulations, as you’re animating change to fit that gravity level, you can just change the light diffusion value, these sorts of things. I would really love for somebody to take a crack at telling a story on Mars in an animated venue, and integrating all this stuff. Because I think it’d be very unexpected for a lot of people what Mars looks like, or how things move how people walk on Mars. You know, in the Mars trilogy, they talked about how people new to Mars, when people first arrive on Mars, they’re constantly slipping, because they don’t weigh as much. And so they’re choose don’t get as much traction. So they’re always falling down. And so you can you can tell who’s new on Mars because they’re the clumsy ones. That’d be great to integrate into something. 

41:00 

Yeah, it would be. 

41:01 

Yeah. Okay, so back to the actual Martian. Mark goes into a reverie about Thanksgiving driving to Sandusky, and how his dad, a cautious driver always drove with his hands on tended to and I want to know. So I have a cousin who’s about 10 years younger than me. And so obviously, and then her state, you can’t get a driver’s license until later than my state. My state allows it at 14 which is 

41:31 

sorry. Sorry, 

41:33 

what were farmers in South Dakota? What can I say? Yeah. But she said that they now teach four and six instead of 10. And two, and I’m sitting here going? Yeah, because it’s apparently about the about the airbags going off your arms are a lot more likely to like be shattered. Yeah, I guess at 10 and two, then at four and six. And first of all, I want to know if this is just like a one off place that teaches it? Or does anybody know? Is this what they actually teach? I meant to look it up. But again, it didn’t happen. 

42:06 

But we have any like teenagers in the audience or people in like their early 20s, who just recently learned how to drive 

42:11 

or just like across the world, like what do they teach what is what is considered the norm? 

42:16 

Because I’ve heard that I’ve heard the foreign seven or whatever, but it doesn’t, but it’s not to me well, and I’ve never seen anybody actually doing well. That’s not a thing that anybody I’ve ever seen in movies or in real life does as they drive their car. 

42:31 

It probably because it probably doesn’t feel as like relaxed. Yeah, but I would like to I have tried to decide what would this dad would dad Watney changed his hand position if he had no, no. I’m gonna say no. 

42:48 

Because I’m gonna say yes. Because clearly he’s a rule follower. I mean, he does. So 

42:53 

when you’re like in your 50s do you? Do you change? Do you really change? I mean, look at our No, never mind. 

43:01 

Never mind. I feel like this is the week that we get off on on diversions. I like how I was like, Alright, back to the Martian, let’s talk about driving techniques in South Dakota. This is this is the week where we go, don’t call me out. Oh, alright. So End of Chapter 24, he gets a very exciting moment, which is when he picks up a hab signal from the nav he they have reprogrammed the nav to be releasing the Aries three signal so that it can guide him in which is very clever. You know, like, he didn’t have to do that Andy Weir didn’t have to put that moment in. But it’s just a cool little thing. Yeah, that NASA is still helping however they can they can do this one thing to help mark out. And so they’re gonna do it. And it was just a nice moment. Yeah. And then and then we ended with, as I put it in my notes, scary exposition. Or maybe not so scary. Yes. I think it’s literally the first time in this book that we get third person. NARRATION sort of from the point of view of Mars. When it’s not impending doom, 

44:04 

I feel like this is Mars. His first dance party, a dance party of one. Yeah, little rave. Yeah. Minor rave. Because he celebrates. Yeah, he’s super excited. Yeah. And you know, 

44:19 

and I love these little these moments. I love how it’s written where it refers to the traveler instead of Mark, it really feels like it’s from the perspective of Mars, that it’s not just a book. It’s not from a character’s perspective. It’s, it’s the silence of this environment, which is very cool. It’s the 

44:37 

fly on the wall, except for flies can’t exist on Mars. Yeah. metaphorical. Okay, so we’ve got chapter 25. And we are reading the math modifications. And I read it like a fiend. And I was, 

44:55 

well before I find before we even get to the math modifications, I do love the fact that as Soon as Mark is back in contact with NASA, they’re like, what have you been doing with your urine? And he’s like, I’ve been dumping it outside, and they’re like, preserve all water, don’t do any more urine dumps, and it’s like, Guys, he’s got this. Like, he’s gonna be leaving in like two weeks. 

45:14 

Well, but he’s fine. I don’t know 

45:16 

that that urine is important. 

45:18 

Oh, no, I’m not saying that they don’t have a good point. What I’m saying is that it’s the instant they can communicate with him, they are back to like ordering him around. He was complaining about this earlier, that he, they they sort of won’t shut up with telling him what to do. And he’s like, I guys, okay. And it’s like the first thing they say to him, it’s like, stop doing that.   

45:37 

I too, don’t like authority. So I have major problems with authority. And I would, thus I could not be in the military or be an astronaut or a police officer or anything else like that. It would not work for me. 

45:53 

So again, it’s okay, because she’s the leader of a company with a bunch of employees. So you know, 

46:01 

the answer to 

46:03 

I do like this line that when Mark realizes all of the modifications when they send him the list of what he’s going to do to lighten the load of the Mavs. He sums it up best by saying you’re sending me into space in a convertible. 

46:23 

Yeah. And that I have to admit, this scene in the movie, I think is my favorite scene in the entire movie, just the way that bt long and short allergy for a play this scene is so just sort of dry. Hilarious. It’s it. They do a fantastic job. 

46:45 

I mean, I believe you, but we’re going to watch it next. So like, yeah, leave something imagination. 

46:51 

Yeah. So the next thing we so they jump to, 

46:58 

to the Hermes, and they have a rescue plan in place. I didn’t. So from what I understand, they are going to get into a specific spot. And they’re going to get very close like to that they need to get within a certain trajectory. Right? Yeah. And then the mave for gets into a certain gets a certain distance. And then one of the guys has to go out and get Mark from the map. 

47:31 

Yeah. So basically, imagine in your mind, sort of like look around the room, wherever you’re sitting and draw a line, like something is flying through the room, and then draw a diagonal line across the room. Somewhere in the room, those two lines are going to intersect. Yeah, except maybe not. Because they could be higher or lower than each other. There’s a point at which they intersect on two dimensions. But you’re wondering where they’re going to be in three dimensions. Right. Okay. And so they are when they talk about the intercept point, it’s where in space is the Hermes is trajectory, going to intercept with the Mavs trajectory, launching from the surface of Mars? And so there are a few considerations. The first is the intercept distance, which is when one of them gets to that point, how far apart are they going to be? And the other is the intercepts velocity, which is, I mean, if they cross each other’s paths, and they’re only within 10 meters of each other great, but if one of them is going, you know, 15 miles an hour faster, it’s like, okay, you just wave at him as he goes by. So what they’re doing is they’re having to figure out how can they get to the right intercept distance, but do it at the right intercept velocity, so that back can go out and grab him that he’s not just gonna fly past and, you know, just be a blur as he goes by? Yeah. Yeah. So Martinez is piloting the math, he’s going to remote pilot, the math Mark isn’t even going to have controls, he’s literally stripping the control panel out of the math, Martinez is going to fly it up. And they’re just going to have to hope that the the trajectories line up properly, so that back can go get him in, because giving some ranges, you know, he’s like, if it’s if it gets up this high, it’s like jumping onto a moving train. And I don’t really know that I can do it. But you know, as long as we keep it within the certain range, we should be good. 

49:29 

I can’t imagine like, I feel like everyone would be so nervous. I mean, I know that they’re all experts in their field, and they’re, they’re highly capable, and they’ve been given weeks to prepare for this. But simultaneously, yikes. Yeah. 

49:45 

They better be game day players. Yeah. You know, but the other thing about this is one of those things that I I tried to tell people whenever I can about science and math, which is that on the one hand, yes, it’s incredibly complicated to calculate the trajectory. The spaceship through space. But on the other hand, in a weird way, it’s kind of simple. Because being in space means that there are so many factors that you don’t have to weigh in. You don’t have to weigh in air, like air resistance, you don’t have to weigh in, you know, gravity as much you’re in freefall, like there are all these things you don’t have to worry about. Yeah, so really, it just becomes this. You care about velocity and distance. That’s it. Those are your two tools that you have to play with. And so in a weird way, it actually becomes simpler. So I feel like yes, these astronauts would be super nervous about this. But on the other hand, I feel like, you know, they’re experts. They’ve trained in this and so it’s probably not too overwhelming because they know how this works. They met last year Martinez, unless you’re Marty Martinez, 

50:48 

who’s like, just so frustrated at the beginning of this chapter, because, you know, he’s only given a couple of shots at dealing with something even remotely similar in his training before they left Earth. Yeah. But as Louis points out, they’ve got two weeks. And what we know is by the end of it, he’s, he’s successful every time unless it’s a failure. Like, 

51:15 

it’s just as there’s nothing you can do. It’s just like, oh, what if the math blows up halfway? 

51:19 

Well, okay, okay. There’s nothing you can do there. That is a that is a that is a pointless, 

51:25 

pointless exercise 

51:26 

exercise. So we get an we get him. We get we go back to Mark Watney. And we see him separating hydrogen again. 

51:36 

Yes. And this is why a different way to do any urine dumps because they actually do need the water. 

51:41 

Yes. And he is doing a hydrogen. He’s separating it in the trailer, and then using the hose to get the hydrogen to the rover where he can just take a tank of the hydrogen over to the map. Yeah. Which I thought like I thought the way that they explained it now, I just kind of did an overview. I don’t know if you really want to deep dive into it. But I thought it it’s on page 335 in case you want to read it. I thought it was really well written. I thought it was understandable. Again, just the real science and this book I love I love how it I would consider myself like the ultimate layman. And I understand that so neat. That’s all you need. Yep, yeah. And so he’s pissing rocket fuel which I 

52:29 

enjoyed phrase. 

52:30 

Yes. 

52:32 

Then 

52:34 

we have him talking to Johansen 

52:37 

Yep. who promises to Roy his body through love making wild passionate love, wild 

52:45 

And really it’s Martinez who’s just like an excellent best friend. Yeah, it’s it. So what is happening is Johansen is talking to Watney. And she leaves for a minute and Martinez takes over. And he doesn’t tell Watney that he has taken over the communication, because they’re not talking. It’s not like voice 

53:08 

Yeah, it’s a text conversation done to johansens account. 

53:11 

Yeah. And so she gets mad at him, especially especially because Johansen is what sleeping with what’s his face back with back. So I just thought it was cute. And I was like, oh, Martinez, you’re such a good friend just to like, you know, harass her and him and just make light, which is good. Um, 

53:32 

so mark is doing modifications to the nav and finally he looks up and he’s done. Yes, that’s weird. It is. I feel like we’ve been through so much in this book with Mark that I feel like that’s almost as weird for us as it is for him. He’s He’s so busy all the time. The idea that there’s literally nothing left to do. There are no problems left to solve. It’s just time to sit in a chair and wait for Martinez to rock at you off this planet. Wow. That’s, that’s heavy, as it were. Heavy. 

54:07 

I think that what is really 

54:11 

I what I really enjoy about Martinez is to me, I think he has the most faith that they will see Watney and what and he will survive this. In my words, not not Martinez, but he’s talking to Lewis. And he essentially says, you know, we’ll have him in our hours and 24 hours. And I was just like, 

54:37 

oh, you sweet, sweet, gentle, faithful man. Well, I 

54:41 

loved it. You know, the other thing that’s nice about Martinez is he’s he is established as the one who sort of has faith. You know, he’s the one who’s religious. And there’s a whole conversation about him telling Louis you need to have faith. And she says, you know, I’m not religious and he says faith and mark. You know, he’s the one who has faith. And oftentimes, faith is represented, especially in media. But even in just in real life, faith is represented as a passive thing. Faith is something that you just, you just release your your sort of your power, you know, I have faith that it will work out. I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m just going to trust that it will. But I like the fact that Martinez is specifically set up as the one who has the most faith. And he is also set up as the one who’s like, sort of kicking his own ass to make this happen. 

55:32 

Yeah, he’s very active in his faith. Exactly. And the faith is not just in, in God, it’s in the people around him. 

55:40 

Yeah, he’s faith and capability. Yeah. 

55:42 

So he’s saying that he has faith in Watney. But in saying that, and saying Watney will be here in 24 hours, he’s also saying he has faith in the rest of the crew. 

55:53 

Yeah, faith in himself, process faith in the tools. And I just I love that. Even the religious guy in this incredibly scientific story is a scientist, you know, he has faith. And he’s going to do it again and again, and again, to make sure he gets it right. 

56:09 

But what is of fun little parallels, you have the Hermes three prepping themselves to, you know, get mark. And then you’ve got all of these scientists back on Earth. And you’ve got Mitch, who’s totally nervous. He is the other person outside of Martinez and Lewis, who’s probably the Who is the most invested and wanting safe return. And he’s hyper nervous. And if he is, because he’s got nothing to do, he’s helpless. Yeah. And I feel like if he had something to do if he had a way to contribute, at this point, he would be less nervous, and it’d be more focused on this is what I can do. These are the steps and it just speaks to how helplessness, the feeling of helplessness can completely change your emotional capacity, because you’ve got Mark Martinez, who is who has, he has his job cut out for him. And things could go awry, and he has to be able to be there to deal with it and fix it. Whereas midges sitting, and wherever, 

57:16 

everybody, nothing, everybody on earth is helpless because of light delay, because they literally could not help even if they wanted to, because they’re not going to hear about what happened until it’s already too late to respond. 

57:29 

Yeah, it’s like a 12 minute light delay, 

57:31 

I think 12 minute one way one. So if they hear something and respond, it would be 24 minutes, which means it’s already over. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s got to be a real feeling of helplessness. And also, by the way, something that is sort of new for NASA. I mean, like in the world of the Martian, this is the area’s three missions. So they would have had to, or really three massive launches that would have gone down like this, that they would not have been able to respond, they would have just been able, they would have just been watching. But you know, in, in real NASA, that’s everything we’ve done has been launching from earth or from the moon, which means that you’re close enough to interact well. And, 

58:10 

you know, up until this point, even when they haven’t been in communication with Mark, they’ve had something to do. Yeah. And now, the time has passed for them. Yeah, their work is done. Now we can we go back to mark, and we learned that he has 41 potatoes left until starvation, which is and he was eaten. 

58:34 

Yeah. Oh, my soul, like four days worth of food. 

58:39 

I just that like makes me so sick to my stomach. Yeah. And you know, he probably would have cut it back. The thing that we are not that we have not seen anybody talk about yet? Is his weight loss. Yeah, you know, he hasn’t said anything about it. Nobody from NASA has brought it up. So I don’t know if in the book they kind of reveal like, Watney is a skeleton walking, or if it’s just something that because movies are such a visual medium that that’s why we see it. Yeah. And it’s terror. It’s It’s so 

59:14 

like, jarring in the movie. Yeah, 

59:15 

it’s grotesque and a lot of ways. So he is now facing his own death. Which I think is interesting because he has been on a death trap of a planet for, you know, over a year and a half. And this is he’s he’s encountered lots of deadly situations. But this is the thing that could ultimately kill him. And nothing you can and there’s nothing he can do about everything every other time. There’s pretty much something he can do about it. If he lives through the thing, he can do something right. And this time, if the mave goes off course if anything bad happens his only option to him is to suck down nitrogen until he falls asleep and dice. Which is it’s just like, luckily, there, there are two ways he could go out here he either explodes and doesn’t obviously doesn’t know what happened instantaneous. Yeah, it’s instantaneous, or he has to do this nitrogen thing, which is sad and depressing and all of that. But I will say that at least it’s not painful. It’s like the it’s like the way people talk about drowning, where it’s which I’m terrified of drowning you guys like no joke. The only reason I learned how to scuba dive is because I was hoping that it would get me over my fear of drowning. It didn’t. But I do love scuba diving. It. You know, there’s there’s something nice about knowing that it’s not dying by fire. Yeah, you know, seriously. 

1:00:54 

But we are left with this sort of finality of the chapter. He says I am leaving Mars today, one way or another about fucking time? And that is just Yes, 

1:01:10 

it is. It is a beautiful ending. But you skipped something. Oh, good. I yeah, he talks about the jobs he’s had. And I think it’s funny that he brings the blue collar to a white collar explorer story. No, because he’s an astronaut. He’s an engineer. He’s a scientist. These are the some of the first labels that you would give this man. And he talks about how he has been a modern day farmer, a trucker, and a construction worker. Yeah. And I love that he is acknowledging all of this physical work this blue, this more blue collar work that he’s had to do, in an effort to keep himself alive. Yeah. And I don’t know, to me, there’s just something there’s something very human like, it’s, it’s kind of all encompassing, but in one person, have, we live in a world where you have to have the blue collar workers, you have to have the white collar workers, you have to have these people who can do all of these different jobs. Because if suddenly you don’t have people working at the laundromat, or at the at the fast food places, there’s a whole section of life that you no longer have access to. And it’s important to these people are important. their jobs are important. And somehow, Andy, we’re recognized to that, and put it into what Mark Watney said, and I just thought it was a little bit of beautiful philosophy. Yeah. And then he, and then we get the end of the chapter, which 

1:02:52 

I loved. Drumroll, please. So, 

1:02:56 

and he’s not shedding a tear for Mars, which I love. Yeah. Because he’s, he’s done. Yeah, he’s ready to go. And I like that. He’s not being sentimental about it. Yeah. 

1:03:06

That was fun for a while. Let’s go home. 

1:03:08 

Yes, we’re done. And 

1:03:10 

I wanted to read ahead. So bad, but I didn’t do it. 

1:03:14 

Yep. And that brings us to the final episode. Next week, we are going to be reading the last two chapters of the Martian, it’s probably going to be about the same length of episode, if not maybe a little bit longer, because one of these chapters is more than twice as long as the average chapter. Okay, great. So, yeah, two chapters. So 

1:03:33 

not the final episode of the synthesis, just a book. 

1:03:37 

Yes, we we here at the synthesis, we’re going to do one more chapter of the Martian novel, and then we are going to do a special episode about the Martian the movie, we’re going to be talking about how it differs from the book and what changes they made, what they kept and how they represented realistic science in a film medium. For something that requires so much exposition in the book to explain how things work. I’m sure it was a huge challenge to adapt that into something where you don’t have somebody writing for pages and pages and pages to tell you about the process. 

1:04:07 

And did we talk about? Does the one you like by the movie or something Do you get behind the scenes? Or like is there a director’s cut, or there is a director’s cut, which I think is probably the one that we’re going to watch, but I’ll need to check what I own. Okay, I think I own them both. And yeah, we’re gonna be talking about the movie, we’re going to be talking about some deleted scenes, as well as the area’s three promotional videos that they made. And 

1:04:34 

so it might take more than one episode to do all of that. Maybe we’ll see. We’ll see. But we’ll keep you apprised of the situation. 

1:04:42 

Yep. So be sure to tune in next week, same time as always, 530 Pacific on YouTube live for the next episode of the synthesis. 

1:04:52 

Exciting now, guys, 

1:04:53 

we’re almost done. Indeed. 

1:04:56 

Okay. All right. That’s it for today.