The Spreadsheet With a Sense of Humour
Ridley Scott's Mars film made competence the thrill, and its potatoes, oxygen and cheerfulness all age well. The date it needed, a crew on the surface, does not.
Nearfi scores The Martian (2015) 7.8/10 as art. Drew Goddard's script and Matt Damon's ease make problem-solving the spectacle, and it stays funny from start to finish. As prophecy, its P(n) is 50%: Oxygen has been made from Martian air and crops have grown in simulant soil, but no crew has left Earth orbit for Mars, and the Starship plan that promised 2026 now says later.
- Drew Goddard's script and Matt Damon's ease make problem-solving the spectacle, and it stays funny from start to finish.
- The stakes are tidy, the crew and the NASA corridor are thinly drawn, and the dust storm that starts everything is a fudge.
- Its Mars has no villain, only institutions doing their jobs, which is the film's most optimistic and least plausible idea.
Oxygen has been made from Martian air and crops have grown in simulant soil, but no crew has left Earth orbit for Mars, and the Starship plan that promised 2026 now says later.
- NEAR A crew of astronauts lands on Mars, works on the surface for weeks and returns to Earth.
- ARRIVING Crops can be grown in Martian soil, fertilised with human waste, to feed a stranded astronaut for years.
- ARRIVING Oxygen and water are made on Mars from local resources to sustain a habitat and support a return launch.
Oxygen has been made from Martian air and crops have grown in simulant soil, but no crew has left Earth orbit for Mars, and the Starship plan that promised 2026 now says later.
The hero of The Martian is a spreadsheet with a sense of humour.
Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is a botanist, left for dead on Mars by his Ares III crewmates after a storm on sol 18 of a 31-sol visit. He is alone, with food for a fraction of the four years until the next mission can reach him. What follows is a film made of sums. How many calories, how many days, how much water can be coaxed out of rocket fuel. Each sum is a scene, each answer buys a few more sols, and each new problem arrives just as the last one is solved. There is no monster. There is a shortfall.
Drew Goddard's screenplay takes Andy Weir's 2011 novel and keeps its great trick: the worst day of a man's life is narrated by someone who is better company than you'd be. Watney records video logs, swears cheerfully, insults his commander's disco collection and talks himself through disaster the way a good engineer does, which is to say as if it were a ticket in the queue. It cost about $108 million and took about $653.6 million worldwide, the biggest hit of Scott's career. It also won the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical, a classification that was widely ridiculed and later prompted the awards body to tighten its rules. Call it a comedy in the old sense, where the competent survive.
What it does well
Scott had been to the stars before, and they were mostly hostile. Here the camera is almost tender. The interiors were built at Korda Studios outside Budapest, and the Martian exteriors were shot in the red canyons of Wadi Rum in Jordan, which gives the film a physical, sunburnt look that most digital deserts can't match. NASA advised on the science and gave the production designer a tour of Johnson Space Center. You can tell. The Hab looks like a place where someone has been doing laundry.
The cast is long and mostly generous. Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig and Sean Bean all work hard in small boxes. Donald Glover, as the astrodynamicist who works out a gravity-assist route back to Mars, gets a handful of scenes and makes a whole film's worth of nerves out of them. Damon holds the middle by not appearing to try. He's the sort of lead who can say something dull to a camera and make you lean forward.
The weaknesses are plain too. The people back on Earth are written as a series of good-natured committee members, and the film avoids every real conflict between them. When the director of NASA wants to be cautious, the film treats him as a minor obstacle rather than a man with a budget. The first storm, the one that starts everything, is a fudge: Mars's surface pressure is under one per cent of Earth's, so wind there pushes far less than the film pretends. And the rescue is built to a thriller's timetable, with a last-minute improvisation and a gap to close in open space. It's superbly staged. It's also the one stretch where the film stops trusting its own arithmetic.
The prophecy: four bets and a calendar
Watney's story rests on four ideas about how people will live on Mars, and it's worth taking them one at a time.
The oxygen. The Hab's life support is the film's quiet engine, and Mars's air is mostly carbon dioxide. In April 2021 the Perseverance rover's MOXIE experiment made about 5 grams of oxygen from that air in a single run, the first time anyone had done it on another planet. By the end of its mission in 2023 it had made 122 grams in total, which NASA compared to what a small dog breathes in ten hours, at a peak of 12 grams an hour. That's a toy, and also a proof. NASA's own sums say lifting four astronauts off the surface would take about 25 tonnes of oxygen, so the next step is a one-tonne descendant, not a bigger toy.
The potatoes. This is the film's best image: a man planting a crop on a planet that has never grown one. The botany is better than it sounds. In a 2014 Wageningen experiment, tomato, wheat and cress grew in a Mars soil simulant for 50 days, and flowered. But the simulant isn't Mars. Mars's soil carries perchlorates, and in a 2021 study they were harmful to plant growth even at half a per cent, with common beans failing to germinate in simulant at all once any was added. The film doesn't dwell on this. Washing the stuff out takes water, and Watney has very little of it.
The rescue. The most hopeful line in the plot isn't technical. It's that the Chinese space agency lends NASA a rocket booster to save one American. That is not impossible so much as illegal. Since 2011 the Wolf Amendment has barred NASA from working bilaterally with China unless Congress explicitly says otherwise, and a House committee report in May 2026 raised concerns about how it is enforced. Yet other cooperation survives. In July 2026 NASA and Roscosmos agreed to keep swapping crew seats until the space station retires in 2030. Rivals can share an airlock. A rescue is a harder test, and the film never mentions the law.
The calendar. None of this matters if there's no crew. The film cheerfully skips the part where someone pays for the ship. In 2020 Elon Musk said he was highly confident of landing humans on Mars by 2026, and the late-2026 Mars launch window is opening now. In February 2026 Musk said SpaceX had shifted its focus to a city on the Moon, with Mars to follow. NASA's own Moon-to-Mars page names no date for a human landing. The Martian is about the near future in the sense that the reader can see it from here, and in no other sense yet.
The reading
What the film got truly right is its tone. Watney never gets a villain, and the real obstacles of a Mars programme, from perchlorate to launch cadence, are the same kind: arithmetic, supply and patience. That's more hopeful than the genre usually dares, and it's more useful. A story about the next fifty years should make us want to do the work, and this one does.
It's less good as a map. The film wants us to believe an agency would redirect a flagship mission to bring back one man, that rivals would help, that a crew would already be out there to be left behind. Each of those is a policy choice, not a physical law, and the real world's choices so far point the other way. A better film would have made the committee scenes as tense as the ones with the duct tape.
Still, you'll leave wanting to plant something. Solve for the next sol, and then the one after.
What it predicted, and what happened
The Martian is most prescient about the small engineering of survival: oxygen has been made from Martian air and crops have grown in simulant soil, though only at toy scale. Its large assumptions are further off: no crew has left Earth orbit for Mars, the commercial plan that promised 2026 has been pushed back, and US law bars the NASA-China rescue the plot relies on.
How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MARTIAN-1 | A crew of astronauts lands on Mars, works on the surface for weeks and returns to Earth. Core premise: without a crewed surface mission there is no stranded astronaut and no story. |
5 | NEAR 2045 (2036–2065) | 52% | 96% |
| MARTIAN-2 | Crops can be grown in Martian soil, fertilised with human waste, to feed a stranded astronaut for years. Major: the potato farm is the film's central survival problem and its most memorable image. |
4 | ARRIVING 2045 (2035–2065) | 52% | 96% |
| MARTIAN-3 | Oxygen and water are made on Mars from local resources to sustain a habitat and support a return launch. Supporting: the Hab's oxygen and water budget shapes every decision Watney makes, but the plot turns on food. |
3 | ARRIVING 2040 (2033–2055) | 66% | 100% |
| MARTIAN-4 | NASA and China's space agency cooperate directly, with China supplying a launch vehicle, to rescue a stranded American astronaut. Supporting: the Chinese booster is a key turn in the rescue, but the plot would survive another partner. |
3 | NEAR 2055 (2038–2100) | 29% | 69% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 7.5 ÷ 15 = 50% | |||||
| P50 = 13.7 ÷ 15 = 91% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 23%.
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MARTIAN-1
A crew of astronauts lands on Mars, works on the surface for weeks and returns to Earth.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: without a crewed surface mission there is no stranded astronaut and no story.
No crew has travelled beyond the Moon's neighbourhood. SpaceX, the firm most associated with a Mars date, said in February 2026 that it had shifted its focus to a lunar city, and its founder's earlier Mars dates have repeatedly slipped. NASA's Moon to Mars pages give no date for a human landing. Landing heavy payloads, surface power and a six-month transit all remain unproven, so the median sits well after the company's targets. 123
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MARTIAN-2
Crops can be grown in Martian soil, fertilised with human waste, to feed a stranded astronaut for years.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the potato farm is the film's central survival problem and its most memorable image.
Plants have been grown on Mars soil simulants, which is a partial form of the film's idea. A 2014 Wageningen experiment grew tomato, wheat and cress for 50 days on a Mars simulant, and some flowered. But simulants are not Martian soil, and perchlorate salts in the real soil are toxic to plants and hard to wash out. No crop has grown in real Martian soil, and none has been grown in the planet's low pressure and radiation. Full arrival depends on a crewed outpost (see MARTIAN-1). 45
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MARTIAN-3
Oxygen and water are made on Mars from local resources to sustain a habitat and support a return launch.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the Hab's oxygen and water budget shapes every decision Watney makes, but the plot turns on food.
Oxygen has been made from the Martian atmosphere: NASA's MOXIE experiment on Perseverance produced 122 grams over 16 runs, with a peak of 12 grams an hour at 98% purity or better. That proves the chemistry, not the scale. NASA's own estimate is about 25 tonnes of oxygen to launch four astronauts, and it points to a one-tonne descendant as the next step. No such unit exists yet. Water extraction on Mars has not been demonstrated here, so the claim is partial. 67
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MARTIAN-4
NASA and China's space agency cooperate directly, with China supplying a launch vehicle, to rescue a stranded American astronaut.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the Chinese booster is a key turn in the rescue, but the plot would survive another partner.
Since 2011 the Wolf Amendment has barred NASA from bilateral work with China or Chinese-owned companies unless a later law allows it, and a May 2026 House committee report pressed NASA on enforcing it. Cross-border cooperation does survive between rivals elsewhere: NASA and Roscosmos agreed in July 2026 to keep seat swaps going to 2030. A shared rescue with China would need Congress to change the law, or an emergency that overrides it. We treat this as a political choice, not a technical one, and give it a wide range. 8910
- AGAINST Elon Musk says SpaceX is shifting focus from Mars to a 'self-growing city' on the Moon. TIME, 2026-02-09. Musk said SpaceX had shifted focus to the Moon. The article lists earlier Mars dates he gave, including 'highly confident' of human landings by 2026 (2020), that have not been met.
- CONTEXT Musk says 50-50 chance of sending uncrewed Starship to Mars by late 2026. Al Jazeera, 2025-05-30. The plan was for an uncrewed first flight with humans on the second or third landings, and a two-year wait if Starship was not ready.
- CONTEXT Moon to Mars Architecture. NASA, 2026-10-26. NASA's framework for the first human Mars missions, with no target year for a landing.
- FOR Can Plants Grow on Mars and the Moon: A Growth Experiment on Mars and Moon Soil Simulants. PLOS ONE, 2014-08-27. Plants germinated and grew on Mars simulant for 50 days with no added nutrients. Tomato, wheat and cress did well, and growth was slightly better than on a river-soil control.
- AGAINST What will it take to grow food on Mars?. CSA News (American Society of Agronomy), 2021-12-29. Perchlorate harmed plants even at 0.5%, beans failed to germinate once any was added, and washing it out needs scarce water and leaves toxic waste. The simulant also compacted when watered.
- FOR NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen from Red Planet. NASA, 2021-04-21. About 5.4 grams in the first hour-long run on 20 April 2021, the first oxygen made on another planet. The release says four astronauts would need about 25 tonnes of oxygen to leave.
- CONTEXT NASA's Oxygen-Generating Experiment MOXIE Completes Mars Mission. NASA, 2023-09-06. 122 grams in total, about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours. The next step is a full-scale system with liquefaction and storage, not a MOXIE 2.0.
- AGAINST Wolf Amendment. Wikipedia, 2011-04-15. Sets out the 2011 appropriations rider, in Public Law 112-10, barring NASA and OSTP from bilateral cooperation with China unless a law specifically authorises it.
- AGAINST Select Committee Releases Report on NASA's Research Security and Enforcement of the Wolf Amendment. House Select Committee on the CCP, 2026-05-14. The committee reports hundreds of NASA-supported publications that may breach the rule and calls for stricter enforcement. NASA acknowledged where improvements were needed.
- FOR Russia Agrees to ISS Operations, Seat-Swaps, Through 2030. SpacePolicyOnline, 2026-07-16. NASA and Roscosmos agree to keep flying each other's astronauts to 2030 without exchange of funds, showing cooperation can survive rivalry, though not with China.
Ledger updated 4 Nov 2026. Open this ledger as its own page · The P(n) Board · Method
Themes: Space
