Atmosphere In Andy Weir's The Martian

“If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of these things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.” (Weir 7). The novel The Martian was written in a time period of when humanity decided to send astronauts to Mars. Andy Weir shows that the red planet is uninhabitable without an artificial environment and adequate supplies. Mars’ weather and atmosphere has been studied throughout time, however it comes increasingly known that humanity can not reside on the Mars without immense caution. Research has suggested for many years that Mars has a thin atmosphere and is a cold planet, however advances in technology has allowed groups like NASA (National Aeronautics

MAVEN explored Mars and reported data suggesting different reasons for atmospheric escape on the red planet. Back in 2013, MAVEN (The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) was launched from planet Earth. After its ten month journey to the red planet of Mars, MAVEN began studying the planet's atmosphere. MAVEN left Earth with the specific goal of studying how Mars went from a sufficient atmospheric pressure and temperature with liquid water, to a cold and low pressure atmosphere today (Lilis 358). More specifically, however, MAVEN had three individual goals. These goals were to determine the structure and composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere, determine various rates of atmospheric escape through various processes, and to determine the exact loss to space through time (Lilis 358). MAVEN