I believe that the movie “The Martian” accurately represented life on Mars. The details of the landscape and environment, strategies used to travel in space, and calculations involved in space travel were definite and factual. The depiction of the atmosphere and environment of Mars was accurate. There were several impact craters and red soil that was inhospitable to life on the planet. Mars also has unpredictable weather; Ares 3 had to have an emergency evacuation of Mars because of an extremely violent sandstorm that was likely to destroy the equipment and housing they had set up. Mars’ extremely low pressure makes it a hazard for humans as well. A pressure stabilizer is necessary to ensure that the body can adjust to the different pressures …show more content…
Hermes cannot enter Mars’ orbit without using more fuel to reach orbital velocity. Thus, the MAV has to escape Mars’ gravity in order to intercept with Hermes. In order for the MAV to escape Mars’ atmosphere, it has to reach the escape velocity. To do this, they had to make the MAV lighter to go faster with the limited amount of fuel available on the spacecraft. They said that they needed to make the spacecraft 5,000 kg lighter in order for the MAV to get to a high enough velocity to intercept with Hermes. Using the equation M_1 V_1=M_2 V_2, you can derive the final equation V_2=M_1 V_1/M_2. This means that the final velocity (V_2) is inversely related to the final mass (M_2). Thus, decreasing the final mass would increase the final velocity. To find the escape velocity of Mars, we use the equation v_escape=√ ((2GM_planet)/R_planet ). The escape velocity is 5.03 km/s. Assuming the initial mass is 10,000kg and the final mass is 5,000kg lighter (5,000kg), we can calculate the initial velocity using the equation V_1=M_2 V_2/M_1=5,000kg × 5.03km/s÷10,000kg= 2.5km/s. This is accurate because 2.5km/s is far below the necessary escape velocity for the MAV. Thus, decreasing the final mass should increase the final