The Martian Part One (pg:1 - pg:94)

The book that I am really enjoying reading is The Martian by Andy Weir. The book hooks the reader and starts off with a man recording himself alone on Mars. This man, Mark Watney, is the main character of the book and turns out to be stuck on mars all alone after the rest of the crew leave him. Mark was stabbed by an antenna that breached his suit and caused him to become unconscious. His crewmates saw his bio-signs go flat, and the pressure in the suit drop nearly to zero. Which established that he was dead. The standard protocol for any dead astronaut was to leave them on the surface of Mars, which is what the crew did. 

Watney regains conscious due to a weak seal in his suit. He struggles and recovers from his injury. He then decides on what to do next. Due to a limited food supply, Watney decides to ration his food supply which will still only give him 400 sols, a day on Mars. He then figures out a way to grow food. The next mission to Mars will be in 4 years and 3200 kilometers away from the site of Ares 3, Mark´s mission. To grow the food you need bacteria and soil from earth that Mark did not have. He starts to collect his urine and feces, in order to establish bacteria, and useful manure to grow plants. He chooses to grow potatoes. Now that he has soil, Watney uses hydrazine, rocket fuel, and oxygen reserves to make water. This was very dangerous and even cause a mini-explosion in the HAB hurting Mark. He then continues onto his next challenge on getting to the Ares 4 site which is 3200 kilometers away. He combines the two rovers’ batteries and other components such as solar cells from the HAB and a source of heat from an extremely dangerous plutonium metal. At the end of part one, he starts running tests as to how far the rover will go. 

In the first part of the book, Watney shows incredible courage and faith in himself. He does not blame his crewmates for leaving him behind. Although Watney starts to be bored at first, he quickly attacks the different problems to survive. Watney shows his perseverance when he comes up with crazy ideas such as the idea to make water. He claims that he has a long time on Mars to find solutions to the challenges he faces. He doesn´t give up even after the explosion he has with the hydrogen and continues to figure things out. He figures out the challenges that he faces and solves them one by one. Watney has a plan to survive and get back to Earth. This book has been very interesting and fun to read. Although the book is fiction, it has a lot of science and seems very realistic such as the description of how astronauts arrive on Mars. The Martian is a very entertaining and interesting book.