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From "The Martian": > Fortunately, I have water. But not as much as I want. To be viable, soil needs 40 liters of water per cubic meter. My overall plan calls
by pilsetnieks 11y ago
From "The Martian":
> Fortunately, I have water. But not as much as I want. To be viable, soil needs 40 liters of water per cubic meter. My overall plan calls for 9.2 cubic meters of soil. So I’ll eventually need 368 liters of water to feed it.
> The Hab has an excellent Water Reclaimer. Best technology available on Earth. So NASA figured “why send a lot of water up there? Just send enough for an emergency.” Humans need 3 liters of water per day to be comfortable. They gave us 50 liters each. There are 300 liters total in the Hab.
So if the soil already has 35 liters per cubic meter, he would have actually needed just 46 liters of additional water and wouldn't have needed to muck about with hydrazine.
- ArtDev 11y agoIts my understanding that the moisture content of martian soil was not know when the book was written. There is more moisture and water ice found rather recently than we had previously estimated.
- pilsetnieks 11y agoOh, I know that, and I love the book and movie, I just thought that it was ironic that it was a talk with Andy Weir. As science progresses, he could in fact publish new editions of "The Martian" with the relevant stuff corrected, a la Ridley Scott's numerous editions of Blade Runner, or, God forbid, Lucas' editions of Star Wars.