By guest blogger, Roise Manning (my youngest daughter)
Funnily enough, watching The Martian has shaped how I think about science in a deep, personal way. There’s something uniquely inspiring about Mark Watney, a man left behind on Mars, completely alone, with the world assuming he’s dead. He doesn’t give up. Instead, he leans on what he knows. He’s a botanist, not an action hero, but he starts solving one problem at a time. How to make water, grow food. How to modify a rover that wasn’t meant to go very far. How to get in contact with NASA, then how to communicate with them. It’s not flashy, it’s survival through science. And more than that, it’s survival through hope.
What moves me most is how he gives himself hope by trusting his knowledge, his training, his ability to think critically, and how to manipulate what resources he does have to survive. That kind of inner resilience feels like the heart of science: believing that the world is knowable, that problems have solutions, and that knowledge (even imperfect knowledge) is power. Watney doesn’t wait for someone to save him. He builds his own way forward, one equation, one experiment, one small decision at a time. When I’m feeling hopeless in today’s climate, like I just can’t take it anymore, I rewatch this movie. I always get chills when he looks around after taking a shower and getting the glass out of his abdomen and says, “I’m not going to die here.”
The whole world begins to root for him. China gives NASA a device they had been keeping secret in order to help them get him food, until a young astrophysicist at NASA comes up with an entirely new idea for how to bring Watney home. He’s not part of the leadership, he’s not a veteran engineer, he’s just a kid. He works through the math, tests it, brings it to the top, and ultimately turns NASA on their heads. And that idea, built around using China’s booster, ends up being the turning point that makes the rescue possible. That moment drives home how science is collaborative, and how progress often comes from unexpected places.
In the end, the entire world, every single country, is listening in to his crew’s dialogue. When the Commander says “We got him!” The screen shows everyone in the whole world jumping up and down, crying, hugging, and I just get this burst of hope and togetherness.
That story reshapes what I think it means to explain something in science. It’s not just identifying causes or finding the “right” answer. It’s about making sense of the unknown by drawing on what we do know. It’s about unifying past experiences and theories, leading us to a path through uncertainty. I used to think science was mostly about answers, but now I see it’s just as much about process. How we think, how we question, how we adapt, and how we use what we have.
I find myself especially drawn to the idea of unification, the way science pulls together knowledge from different fields to create something greater. In The Martian, botany, chemistry, physics, and engineering all come together to keep one person alive. And in real life, it’s the same: science isn’t just a subject; it’s a way of seeing and solving problems that connects everything.
This understanding of explanation gives science a deeper purpose to me. It’s not only a method for discovery, but it’s a mindset of persistence and possibility. It tells us that even when things seem impossible, there is a way forward. Maybe not right away. Maybe not perfectly. But step by step, with the right tools and mindset, we can make sense of the unknown…and survive it.
At the end of the movie, Watney is teaching a group of students, and he breaks it down perfectly. He says, “You solve one problem, and then the next, and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.” He reminds them that when you’re in space, you have to think on your feet, as space does not cooperate.
“Something WILL go south.”
So what are YOU going to do? What are you going to do with your knowledge, and the things at your disposal?
Bethany Hang Out 