What would you do if you were stranded alone on Mars, unable to transmit a message to NASA from a computer or radio but capable of being viewed via satellite? This is just one of the endless questions facing brilliant, disco-hating, wisecracking astronaut Mark Watney in Andy Weir’s 2011 page-turning debut science fiction novel “The Martian”.
While communication is important to Watney’s survival on the Red Planet, he methodically and ingeniously tackles—in MacGyver-like fashion—a range of issues that are even more dire: how to grow and fertilize his own food in Martian soil (the answer is less than appetizing), how to safely produce water, and how to travel 50 sols across tricky terrain while not freezing in the process. (By the way, a “sol,” a solar day on Mars, is approximately 39 minutes, 35 seconds longer than an Earth day.)
At various stages of the adventure, Watney has full communication capabilities with Earth and the vessel transporting the other crewmembers who unwittingly left him, supposedly dead, on Mars. But when this level of communication isn’t possible, he decides spelling out Morse code messages with rocks is a more efficient means of conveying his status than using the standard alphabet (fewer rocks, less work). Having lots of time on his hands, and only videos of “Three’s Company” and other 1970s TV, Agatha Christie mysteries, and the aforementioned disco music (also some Beatles), Watney makes good use of his downtime by learning Morse code—a move that definitely pays off.
Unfortunately, the movie version of “The Martian”, starring Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, and Jessica Chastain, leaves out the Morse code via Martian rocks references—just one of a gazillion details from the scientifically jam-packed novel that didn’t make it to the silver screen. Other than the many truncated or ignored aspects of Weir’s beloved tale of survival and resourcefulness (the movie could have easily been a four-part miniseries), the cinematic take on “The Martian” is mostly faithful to the book in tone and plotting, save for a rather significant detail near the end (too many spoilers here, so we’ll leave it at that).
Don’t get me wrong, the movie, directed by Ridley Scott, does a decent job of condensing the book, and the cinematography and acting are topnotch, but—and this applies to just about any authorial work that must be retooled for brevity’s sake—READ THE BOOK FIRST. Yes, I am that frequently annoying “but you need to read the book” guy.
Bottom line: Hams inclined to well-researched and compelling science fiction, with plenty of humorous touches, will enjoy the “The Martian”, unless you’re particularly fond of ABBA or averse to salty language (the book’s intrepid hero is incredibly bright but hardly the straight-laced John Glenn-type as portrayed in “The Right Stuff”, so be warned).
For those interested in equipping your station for Morse code, sorry, DX Engineering does not sell Martian rocks. But you can find everything else you’ll need at DXEngineering.com to send CW transmissions, including keys and paddles, DX Engineering PaddlePads, electronic keyers, and more.
Contact with Mars
While as of this post, no amateur has bounced a signal off of Mars in the manner of Earth-Moon-Earth communication, a group of German amateur radio hobbyists successfully bounced a radio signal off the planet Venus—over 31 million miles away—on March 25, 2009. (The average distance between Earth and Mars is 140 million miles, while our moon is practically down the block at 238,900 miles away.)
Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, president of AMSAT-DL, wrote about the E-V-E contact: “The ground station at the Bochum observatory transmitted radio signals to Venus. After traveling almost 100 million kilometers, and a round trip delay of about 5 minutes, they were clearly received as echoes from the surface of Venus.” Read more about this historic contact at the AMSAT-DL website
