There is the plausible science (using rocket fuel as a source for water) and the downright impossible fiction (Mars sandstorms are not strong enough to cause damage. The course is designed to play up the intersection between science and science fiction, Kay says. Also, rocket fuel wasn’t really in the budget.” “I made the executive decision to skip that part of his process,” Kay said. In “The Martian,” Damon’s character, astronaut Mark Watney, produces water by burning leftover rocket fuel and extracts the hydrogen from the resulting chemical reaction. There’s also the problem of hauling up water, which has yet to be found in plentiful liquid form on Mars. “We know we’d probably need to bring some soil from Earth, but we’re trying to figure out the minimum amount of extra material we’d need to bring in order to grow some sort of food we could eat.” It's just sort of like substrate,” Kay explained. “As far as we know, the soil on Mars doesn’t have any organisms or micronutrients.
And then there’s potting soil, which Kay concedes would have to be hauled up from Earth. There’s iron-rich clay to simulate regolith, the rocky material that covers the surface of Mars and other extraterrestrial bodies. There’s salt to simulate the planet’s high level of perchlorates. Kay supplied the 16 freshmen in his class with the makings of Martian soil for their own little Martian potato farm.
“I thought it would be fun if we tried to replicate his little experiment,” Kay said. Kay, a visiting assistant professor of geology at William & Mary, is using the hypothetical situation Damon’s character finds himself in - being stranded on Mars and forced to grow his own food - as a real research question for students in his new COLL 150 class Science and Science Fiction. “So that’s basically the plot of ‘The Martian,” said Jon Kay, describing the 2015 film starring Matt Damon. To survive, you improvise a potato farm on Martian soil. Your fellow astronauts leave you for dead, but you’re still very much alive, alone and stuck on Mars. During evacuation, you, the mission’s botanist, are struck by debris and you disappear into a cloud of dust. Suddenly, a strong sandstorm forces the crew to abort the mission.
You and your crewmates on Ares III are exploring a plain on the surface of Mars.