The worldwide movement to join NASA’s “Journey to Mars” is building daily and is bound to skyrocket with 20th Century FOX’s film “The Martian,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, and opening on Oct. 2. A press day took place at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) last Tuesday.
A screening of the film was followed by a panel discussion, including opening remarks from Director of JPL Charles Elachi, Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters Jim Green, author of “The Martian” Andy Weir, Director Ridley Scott, Actor Matt Damon and NASA astronaut Drew Feustel.
In “The Martian,” Damon plays the role of astronaut Mark Watney, a member of a crew sent to Mars who gets left behind after a fierce storm and is presumed to be dead. His character survived and has to use what is around him on the hostile planet to send a signal to Earth so he can be rescued.
“I think us mere mortals are always captivated by the way people can do this and seem to have some preternatural calm when they’re in these incredibly high-stress situations, and that was what was really attractive about the character,” Damon shared about the role.
Damon was asked if he would be interested in going to Mars given the opportunity. “I think it takes a special type of person,” he shared. “I’m glad there are those type of people already … I’ll let SpaceX and those guys get out there for about 20 years or so before I go on a flight.”
“It’s a funny thing about astronauts. We have to be smart enough to fly a spacecraft back to earth, but just a little bit whacky enough to sit on top of that rocket fuel,” Feustel quipped. “When the count down gets to zero, you definitely are having second thoughts about the decisions you’re making in life, but you get there and, for us, it’s about doing the job that we were trained to do and carrying out the mission.”
There are many different movements taking flight on social media about travel to Mars, including “MarsorBust2030” (a group planning to travel by the 2030s to Mars), “Mars One” (those buying a one-way ticket to colonize the planet) and the “Mars Generation” (those who were not alive to witness the first steps on the moon, but may witness the first steps on Mars).
“Some of us were around when we landed on the moon — we were the lunar generation and that was pretty spectacular — but when we landed Curiosity on Mars, we had the world’s attention and that’s the ‘Mars Generation,’” Green explained. “That’s the inspiration that will propel our economy forward by bringing in the scientists and the engineers. [‘The Martian’] is a fabulous opportunity for us to celebrate that.”
After the Q&A, attendees toured the NASA/JPL Mars Program and JPL’s ‘MarsYard’ — a simulated Martian landscape used by the research and flight projects to test different robotic prototypes, including a Curiosity Rover replica, the Wheel Life Cycle testing rig, testing for highest factuality use of aluminum wheels for use on Mars, and a variety of rocks, beach sand, and granite throughout the yard to support multiple test conditions.
