Hello, Comic Con.
And welcome to Journey to Mars and The Martian.
My name's Aditya Sood.
I am one of the producers on the upcoming
film, The Martian.
And we have an incredible, incredible panel
today, really excited to talk to you guys.
Maybe before we kick things off, I got a little
something to show you if you're interested.
We should cue them, or I can do it in charades.
You don't seem interested enough.
Okay.
Every human being has a basic instinct.
To help each other out.
If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people
coordinate a search.
If an earthquake levels the city, people all
over the world send emergency supplies.
This instinct is found in every culture.
Without exception.
At around 4:30am our satellites detected a
storm approaching the ARES 3 mission side
on Mars.
The storm had escalated to severe and we had
no choice but to abort the mission.
But, during the evacuation, astronaut Marc
Watney was killed.
I'm entering this log for the record.This
is Marc Watney, and I'm still alive, obviously.
I have no way to contact NASA or my crew mates.
But, even if I could, it would take four years
for another manned mission to reach me, and
I'm in a Hab designed to last 31 days.
So, in the face of overwhelming odds, I'm
left with only one option.
I'm gonna have to science the **** out of
this.
Okay, let's do the math.
I got to figure out how to grow four years
worth of food, here, on a planet where nothing
grows.
But, if I can't figure out a way to make contact
with NASA, none of this matters anyway.
Houston be advised.
We've got a video message.
It's directed to the crew.
Play it.
Mark Watney is still alive.
In your face, Neil Armstrong.
We left him behind.
Let's go get our boy.
This is something NASA rejected.
So, we're talking mutiny.
And if we mess up the supply rendez-vous,
we die.
If we mess-up the earth gravity assist, we
die.
It's space, it doesn't cooperate.
I guarantee you, that at some point, everything
is gonna go south on you.
And you're gonna say "this is it".
"This is how I end."
Is it possible that he's still alive?
So, before we get started, I just want to
say, you know, in my line of work, I get to
hang out with some of the, like, pretty cool
and interesting people.
And I'll be honest, we get a little blasé
about it, and I go and I, like, see my cousins.
And they tell me, like, oh my God, you know
blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, yeah, why not?
He's just like a regular--I have not been
more star struck than I was backstage with
these guys because they actually do real work
and truly, truly amazing things.
So, you guys are in for a real treat today.
So, all right.
So, let me introduce our panel.
First, Jim Green, the Director of Planetary
Science for NASA, he's in charge of planetary
exploration.
He's a Mars expert.
He was also a technical consultant on The
Martian and helped us in ways that you cannot
even possibly imagine.
And he--you know, he is basic--by the way,
he also doesn't just do Mars.
He does pretty much the entire solar system,
and I know I promised him I would just keep
it to Mars, but he's also involved with the
Pluto flyby.
Maybe that's something you guys have heard.
And we have Todd May.
Todd is--he's just building the next spaceship
that's actually going to take us to Mars.
You guys may have heard of it.
It's the space launch system.
He is--I mean it's incredible what--and he'll
tell you more about it.
But, the SLS, when it's completed, is actually
going to be more powerful than the Saturn
V rocket.
And then we have Victor Glover.
Victor Glover, as of yesterday, is an astronaut
officially.
And he's--he and the members of his class
aren't just any astronauts.
They are actually the class that most likely
will be among the first people to walk on
Mars.
And finally, we have Andy Weir, the author
of The Martian, or as I like to say, the guy
who got us into this mess.
And Andy, you know, is, besides being an amazing
guy, is an amazing novelist and I think has
created something that, you know, not--already
as a book is going to be an all-time classic.
And hopefully, we've done him proud with our
film.
All right.
So, let's start.
Jim, why don't you tell us a little bit about
Mars?
My pleasure.
You know, what I'd like to do, since Mars
is one of our destinations beyond low-Earth
orbit, we'll go to this planet.
It's a beautiful planet.
And as Andy has glimpsed into the near future
and shown us what humans can do, I want to
give you a little background about Mars.
So, if you want to go to Mars, yeah, then
you need to learn to be a Martian.
So, in the few minutes I have, I thought I'd
talk a little bit about this beautiful planet,
this beautiful red planet.
This, of course, is what it looks like today.
It's very arid.
It has a very small atmosphere, only about
a percent or so of the Earth's atmosphere.
It's not like ours.
It's primarily carbon dioxide, but it has
a whole series of trace gasses, and we've
been examining Mars for more than 50 years
now, with a whole series of probes.
Now, as you know, we have two rovers that
are actively working right now on the surface,
Opportunity and Curiosity.
And they are finding amazing things.
Curiosity is sitting in an ancient riverbed,
a place that we now know that tells us a lot
about Mar's past because three and a half
billion years ago, Mars looked like this.
It looked much more Earth-like than it ever
did in its history.
This environment could have been habitable.
It had a significant amount of water.
In fact, the Northern Hemisphere was probably
more than half ocean.
This is an enormous change in the environment,
that it occurred over time.
And our spacecraft are indeed looking at it
to try to determine how this happened.
So, where did the water go?
What indeed happened to Mars over time?
Let me see if I can get the next one.
Here we go.
Well, the water not only evaporated away,
but it also went underground.
And what we're looking at is four images over
a Mars year looking down the side of a crater.
And what I want to point out are these long,
what look like, linear streaks that come out,
and they come out during the summer.
And what that is, it's water, we believe briny
water, coming out of aquifers after the sun
has heated the plug of water that's holding
it back, sublimating it away.
And what is pouring down the sides of these
craters.
We find this in Valles Marineris.
We find it in many other locations on Mars.
So, indeed, Mars was a very wet environment
in the past, and it has a significant amount
of water in the future for us to be able to
use.
And that's the really good thing.
So, when humans go to Mars, rather than bringing
all their water, we'll tell them, "Bring a
straw because we know where to go."
And we can get it.
So, here's a topographical map of Mars.
In the bluish area are the low areas.
This is where indeed the water oceans would
be, and in fact where the blue and the green
meets, these are the shores, the ancient shores
where clays are found and where, perhaps,
life started about three and a half billion
years ago.
We don't know that for a fact, but we would
love to find that out, and our missions are
indeed making progress in this area.
The only two that are operating right now,
of course, are in the blue.
They're Opportunity and Curiosity, and these
are the locations that they are.
Now, Andy's book takes place north of where
Pathfinder is, in that bluish area.
So, Ares 3 was sitting in the ancient ocean
floor of Mars.
And of course, that's a beautiful area to
be at because there are also resources.
There's water underground in that particular
area, so quite a beautiful area.
Curiosity, when it landed, it took its hand
lens and took 54 images of itself.
And of course, what that meant was it created
its first selfie, posted it on its Facebook
Web site.
And so, we all could enjoy it.
But, it moved on, and of course, it looked
at the soils.
It has some of the most advanced astrobiological
instruments we've ever launched.
And when it drilled into the soils, what it
found was not red Mars.
It was gray Mars.
It told us about the past of Mars.
And what did it find?
It found carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and
phosphorous and sulfur.
Those were all the basic ingredients to life.
So, this area, like the Earth, three and a
half billion years ago could have started
life.
So, this is a fabulous planet to explore and
to continue to do our science in.
Currently, our orbiters, as you can see here,
we have quite a few that are operating, some
from European Space Agency.
We have another one called MOM, which is also
from the Indian Space Agency.
But, we have the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,
and we have Mars Express.
And of course, now as you can see, we have
Opportunity and Curiosity.
What we're going to launch next year are two
major missions.
One is Insight.
It's going to get down.
It's not a rover.
It will sit down on the ground of Mars and
will make seismic measurements.
We want to know how active the planet.
Are there marsquakes?
We can from orbit observe avalanches going
on, on Mars.
What is the cause of that?
Is the interior of the planet still very active
that do produce marsquakes?
Or is it because of impacts from the nearby
asteroid belt that sometimes impacts Mars
itself?
Then, of course, we have our upcoming rovers.
ESA has what's called ExoMars, but we have
the rover called Mars 2020 that we're currently
building right now.
Now, in the book, Andy used this beautifully,
indeed, in terms of the orbiters that were
there and used that basic infrastructure that
we have and really brought us that immediate
imagination as to what we might be doing on
the surface of Mars.
Here is that upcoming rover called Mars 2020
that we're building.
What's really great about this is we have
a Norwegian instrument underneath the pan
of the rover that is a ground-penetrating
radar.
It's going to be looking for those aquifers.
But, in addition to that, we have perhaps
our first human exploration instrument, and
it is called MOXIE.
And let me show an image of MOXIE, if I could.
There we go.
As you can see, it's not a very large instrument.
But, what it does is it brings in that CO2,
and it pops of an oxygen.
And it, for the first time as Andy points
out in the book, is an oxygenator.
And so, these are the kind of things that
we want to learn how to use and do on Mars
for us to be able to, in the long run, make
it there.
So, what is the plan?
To go to Mars, it takes science, it takes
exploration, and it takes technology.
In low-Earth orbit, we're doing a number of
things right now with Space Station.
We have one of the Kelly brothers that is
on Station right now that is staying for a
year because that's approximately the time
it will take to go to Mars and learn to be
able to work and live in space over that long
period time.
We also have the SLS that we're currently
building.
That is the rocket that will take humans there,
and we need a lot of equipment and support
capability to go there.
But, indeed, we also are going to continue
to go on with our scientific experiments,
our scientific robots, if you will.
So, when humans are on Mars, they will not
only be communicating with those orbiting
assets that we have there, but they'll have
their pet rovers like Curiosity alongside
them making measurements as we go along.
And so, indeed, this is our future, and the
evolution of a Martian starts from exploring
with our robotics and onto our human explorers.
And so, with that, Todd?
Thank you, Jim.
Hey, I'll just tell you guys.
It is--I am so geeked out about being out
here and being on this stage that--with Andy
Weir and the [unintelligible] the guys that
wrote The Martian, and then Leonard Nemoy's
son was just up here.
You see my shirt?
It actually says turkey.
I thought it said trekkie when I bought it.
So, you heard a lot about the robotic program.
I'll humanize it a little bit for you.
And then, of course, Victor's going to make
it even more humanized for you.
There's actually a little part in Andy's book,
and I won't give away any details, but where
they say, "All over the Earth, they gathered."
There was an event, and people gathered all
over the Earth.
This photograph was taken in Saigon shortly
after Neil Armstrong and Buzz landed on the
moon, and the reason I'm showing it, because
I got a chance--I actually was sitting console
for the Phoenix Lander mission back in a previous
life.
And Buzz Aldrin spoke that night, and he talked
about coming back from the Moon and getting
papers from around the world that said, "We
did it."
It didn't say, "Buzz did it.
Neil did it.
The Americans did it."
It said, "We, the human race."
And again, without saying too much about the
book, there's a theme in there about humankind
and the human spirit.
But, that was the Moon, and at some point
here in the near future, if this clicker will
work, click, click, there we go.
We're going to see this on Mars.
I love this picture because it was painted
by a scientist friend of mine, Dr. Dan Durda
from Southwest Research Institute, and he's
a geologist.
One of the things you will learn about Mark
Watney, the hero of The Martian, is that he
was a botanist.
And so, the idea of a scientist, and exploration
and science working together, you actually
saw in that picture that Jim just showed the
intertwining of technology, exploration, and
science together.
We used engineering and technology to make
the machines.
But, we use our scientific minds, like geology
and scientists, to discover.
It is great to work for a space agency, and
the three of us do here, whose mission statement
is to reach new heights and reveal the unknown
so that what we do and learn can benefit all
mankind.
That is not--I guarantee you that's not what's
over the door of the postal service.
And so, this idea of what we do being for
all of us here, for all of you, for all of
us, and so, yes, we're going to Mars.
I actually had an astronaut who said something
to me a couple days ago.
And he said it in front of a bunch of people,
so I'll say it again.
He says, "I was in the White House a few days,
and the President said, 'We're going to Mars.'"
That's a pretty cool thing to hear.
And we are.
And as Jim said, there's a whole bunch of
things that work together to get us there.
I'll talk about this chart slightly differently,
and that is that the left side here is kind
of Earth dependent.
We have humans in orbit today.
They've been up there for more than a decade.
But, we're hours away from Earth if we need
to get home.
Mars, you're going to be months or over a
year.
You're going to be Earth independent.
And that is a hard thing to do.
And as you know from the book once you get
there, it's also very hard to get home.
But, in the middle ground in there is what
we call the proving, where you're not quite
Earth independent, but you're not quite Earth
dependent.
You're in an area where you could come back
in days or weeks.
And so, the SLS, when it first launches, it's
going to be launching in cislunar space.
The first time, we put humans on it.
The second flight, we're actually going to
set a distance record.
We'll go out into deep retrograde orbit on
the back side of the moon, and we'll be out
in that proving ground area once again.
And then from there, we put all those building
blocks that Jim talked about together to get
folks to Mars.
But, if you're going to send a human to Mars,
rovers are fairly needy.
You know, they need a couple hundred watts
of power.
But, if we're going to send Victor and some
of his friends to Mars for a long period of
time, they need a lot of stuff.
And if you're going to take a lot of stuff
out into deep space and into Mars, you're
going to need a large, capable ship to be
able to get you out there.
I literally left.
We were in the middle of our final design
review of the space launch system this week.
I will chair a board in about a week and a
half, and we will say, "We are go for design
certification phase."
We are building it as we speak today.
The rocket you 
see before you has the brand-new Orion capsule,
which you may have seen in December launched
aboard Delta 4 to get a test flight under
its belt.
The boosters on the side look a lot like the
solid rocket boosters from the shuttle program.
They are, except they've got an extra segment.
So, they've got about 25 percent more power,
3.5 million pounds of thrust coming out of
those things.
The engines on the bottom are the RS25 engines.
They're essentially engines that actually
have flown on the shuttle before.
We have 16 of them in our fleet.
They are proven engines.
These things are Ferraris, 18--the equivalent
of 18 Hoover Dams coming out of the bottom
of that.
They can empty a swimming pool in 25 seconds.
They're made out of materials like monel and
inconel that can go from cryogenic temperatures
to 6,000 degree in half a second.
We are actually starting to make these rocket
parts now out of--of course, everybody's been
hearing about 3D printing.
We call it selective laser melting.
We're actually--yeah, we have to put a NASA
name on it.
But, we are making rocket parts now on 3D
printers, which is pretty amazing.
That's part of what makes this thing more
affordable than we've been in the past.
The center you see there, the core, that's
a 27 1/2 foot core.
It's made with friction-stir welding machines
down in Michoud.
We have the world's largest friction-stir
welder.
It's over 200 feet tall, and it is accurate
to within two ten-thousandths of an inch.
We can pop these things out off of just six
machines.
We make the core structure.
And then on top of that, you see the ICPS
in between the Orion and that core stage.
That's essentially a Delta 4 upper stage.
By the time we get to the second launch, we
may go ahead and put the upper stage on it.
Once we do that, we're going to have a rocket
that is more powerful than the Saturn V and
can put 40 metric tons in the cislunar space.
And since this is Comic Con, okay, there's
a little shout out.
Actually, though, what you need to know about
this stuff, I've kind of hinted at it.
This is real hardware.
We have about 60 percent of the articles at
Michoud, these big, giant pieces you see on
the right of the core stage, the flight units.
We have all the qualification units, all the
Pathfinder units already built, all the rings,
all the dome segments.
As I said, this--we have 16 flight engines
ready to go.
On the left there, we've actually tested the
new motor four times now, three development
motor firings and one qualification motor
firing.
We've got one more qual motor firing.
Then it's on to building the flight unit.
And so, I'm going to show you a quick video
here real--and get you a little excited about
this thing.
And then I'm out.
[Video Presentation]
It's actually louder than that in person,
I imagine.
It is.
We like our smoke and fire.
So, I will say that Andy's book kind of starts,
you know, and you've already got him on Mars.
And if you've ever read Failure Is Not an
Option, it's kind of the first chapter's like,
and then one day a rocket appears.
And then the hard stuff begins.
I want to let you guys know there are folks,
thousands of people in 46 states around this
country that are assembling this rocket today.
And they have their pocket protectors, and
they have their calculators.
And they're checking it twice.
And we're getting this rocket ready for Victor.
With that, I'll hand it off.
So, Victor, I want to ask the most important
question.
Are you going to be the first man on Mars?
I sure hope so.
Seriously, get your photos now.
This is like a Babe Ruth rookie card.
Well, tell us a little bit about, you know,
about the astronaut training.
And how do you even prepare for going a place
that no one has ever gone before, to coin
a phrase.
First of all, can we give a shout out to the
sound guy, because that was--and I'm going
to answer your question and get to the astronaut
training stuff.
But, I mean how amazing is it?
We're in one of the most beautiful cities
in America.
The weather is great.
But, we're in here.
The room is packed.
Fred Flintstone is here.
And I'm sure there's a Ninja Turtle out there
somewhere too.
And we're here talking about going to Mars.
I mean that--it's amazing.
That's amazing.
And so--.
--Fred's excited about that--.
--And Fred is happy.
Fred's worked up.
Yabba dabba doo.
It's--this is amazing.
It's great to be here.
And, you know, I haven't been with NASA that
long.
Next month will be two years.
So, we just finished astronaut candidate training.
Actually, yesterday our class, the eight of
us, the 2013 astronaut candidate class was
officially pinned astronauts.
And so, we have eight new astronauts on Team
America.
And, yes, yeah, that's pretty neat.
And just today, they announced the names of
the first astronauts to fly on the commercial
crew vehicles.
And that's very important, bringing the launch
capability back to American soil, getting
astronauts to the Space Station.
All amazing things, and we're doing all of
this stuff.
And then Todd's going to get us out beyond
lower Earth orbit.
And those missions fit together.
They work together, all towards getting us
going to Mars.
What we do is train to work and live in space,
whether it's in low-Earth orbit or on the
way to the Moon to test out the system, that
proving ground that's going to get us--we
got to go halfway to Mars before we go all
the way to Mars.
And so, our job is to get good at working
and living in space.
And, you know, it's amazing that living on
the Space Station for over a decade, you know,
it's been manned for 15 years, and we're still
learning things.
And we will until that system is no longer
in use.
We're learning to use it more effectively
as a national laboratory.
The science that's going on up there is invaluable.
We're learning things about basic physics.
You know, water droplets form differently
up there, and mist behaves differently up
there.
And when you burn materials, combustion happens
differently up there.
And we're learning things about basic elements,
things that we take for granted, watching
a fire burn here on Earth.
And so, learning to use that system more effectively
is feeding into our ability to develop systems
and to understand the effects of long-duration
space flight on the human body.
And that's probably the most important thing
because you ask these smart guys to my right
and this smart guy to my left, he understands
it as well.
The weak link in the chain is us.
We are the hard thing to get to Mars.
We're already there with robots, with instruments
in space.
But, to put us there is a challenge.
And we understand that.
And there's a lot we have to learn about how
we can get us there.
And so, you know, we have a very unique office.
We've got folks from all different kinds of
backgrounds.
I'm a military pilot.
I was officemates with this really amazing
engineer that every time I speak to him, it
makes me want to go home and pick up my calculus
book and study.
And every time I have a conversation with
him, I walk away from it, and I close the
door.
And I just go, man, I just had a conversation
where the guy says, "You know that one time
I was in space."
He's one of the smartest guys that I know.
And it's amazing that we're talking about
working and living in space.
And it wasn't until I showed up at NASA that
I realized that we've done that.
We've done that for over a decade.
We lived there.
We are out there.
And it's--you know, Mark Kelly is up there
right now on that one-year mission, helping
us get better at living and working in space.
And it's amazing.
And we'll talk some more about those things
in detail.
But, you know, it's just amazing.
And I'm new.
So, this is still cool to me.
I can't believe I'm actually really sitting
here talking to you about flying in space.
It's amazing.
All right, Andy, first of all, congratulations
on the success of the book, by the way, the
number one New York Times bestseller last
week.
Yep.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I don't know how many--how many of you guys
have read the book?
Come on.
All right.
How many of you guys are going to read the
book after this panel?
I don't know how much you know about--.
--I see some sales there.
Huh?
I see some sales there.
It's looking good.
I don't know how much you know about the story
behind the book.
But, I will tell you it is almost or maybe
even more exciting that Mark Watney's journey
of how, Andy, how you took--I mean why don't
you tell us a little bit about how this all
came about?
All right.
Well, these are a pretty tough act to follow
here.
We've got, like, makes blockbuster movies,
makes space probes, makes rockets, flies rockets.
Sometimes I put pants on during the day to
write.
Sometimes, no.
So, yeah, I'm glad I could follow you four.
The story behind the story on The Martian
is kind of, you know, as Aditya says, a story
in itself.
I always wanted to be a writer ever since
I was a kid, but I also like eating regular
meals, and I don't want to live under an overpass.
So, when the time came to choose a profession,
I ended up being a computer programmer, which
I like and I was good at, well, eventually.
And to give you an indication of how long
I was programming computers, I was one of
the programmers on Warcraft II.
That's a long time ago.
As time went on, I did get--at one point,
I worked for AOL.
And I got laid off, and along with 800 of
my closest friends when they merged with Netscape,
once again revealing how old I am.
And it ended up being a really good severance
package because I had stock options, and I
was forced to sell them because I'd been laid
off.
I had something like 60 days to sell them.
So, I just sold them.
And that turned out to be AOL's all-time high
stock price.
So, I assure you I would not have made a wise
financial decision left to my own devices.
But, events conspired.
So, I had some money.
And I said, "Like, oh, I'm going to spend--I'm
going to take my shot.
I'm going to try to be a full-time author."
Okay.
So, I took three years off, or rather just
didn't go look for another job for three years,
and I wrote a book.
And that book is not The Martian.
And it's the standard story for authors, couldn't
get an agent, couldn't get any publishers
interested, wasn't that great a book.
It was actually my second book.
My first book really sucked.
That was--I wrote that in college before the
days of the Internet.
So, it doesn't exist out in the digital realm,
thank God.
But, anyway, so, after three years, I went
back to work as a software engineer.
That wasn't a big failure for me because I
liked doing it.
And I decided I'll do writing as a hobby.
The Internet was just starting to come into
its own.
People could have their own Web sites.
And I thought, okay, here's an avenue where
I can write.
I can have an audience.
And I don't need to get published or anything.
I mean it's not going to be a profession.
But, it'll be a hobby.
So, I spent the next 10 years writing.
I made a Web comic called "Casey and Andy".
I made another Web comic called "Cheshire
Crossing".
And then I made a whole bunch of narrative
short fiction.
I made one short story called "The Egg" that
a lot of you may have heard of.
Dead silence, okay, so, I did make a story
called "The Egg."
And I also was writing three different serials
at the same time, where I would just post
chapters to my Web site one at a time.
One of them was about a mermaid living in
the 19th century in New England.
Another one is--was like hardcore sci-fi about
aliens and telepaths and stuff like that.
And the third one was The Martian.
So, I was posting The Martian chapter by chapter
to my Web site when I felt like it.
I got feedback from my readers.
I had about 3,000 regular readers at that
time, based on the size of my mailing list,
and they're all hardcore nerds like me.
And so, they would--whenever there was anything
wrong in the book, anything scientifically
inaccurate, they would be like, excuse me.
So, I called them beta readers because they
would find all the bugs.
And it was great.
I could go back and fix things, and also getting
all the feedback helped really motivate me
to finish it up.
So, when I finished, I figured like, okay,
I'm done, no big deal.
I've finished this book.
Now I'm going to go work on my other serials.
And I started to get e-mail from people saying,
"Hey, I loved your--I loved The Martian.
But, I hate reading it on your Web site,"
which is reasonable because my Web site sucks,
"And can you make an e-reader version?"
So, I went ahead and did that.
I made an e-reader version, and I posted it
to my site and said, "There you go.
There's an e-pub version and a mobi version.
Every e-reader reads at least one of those.
Knock yourselves out."
Then I got other e-mails.
"Andy, I love that there is an e-reader version
available.
But, I'm not very technically savvy.
And I just don't know how to download a thing
from the Internet and put it on my e-reader.
Can you just put it up on Kindle?"
So, I figured out how to do that.
It's pretty easy.
You just go to Kindle Direct Publishing.
KDP is what I used.
You can post it up there.
They hold onto it for 24 hours just to have
a human look at it to make sure you're not
posting a bunch of goat porn.
But, don't judge.
Don't judge.
Anyway, once you--once it gets out there,
then, you know, then it's for sale.
You're not allowed to give it away for free,
though.
You have to charge at least 99 cents.
They want to make their money.
So, they get the lion's share of the price.
I set it to 99 cents, the absolute minimum.
I wanted to give it away for free, right?
And so, I was pulling down a cool 30 cents
a copy.
Yeah, you know it.
It got around.
It got really good reviews.
People gave it good reviews.
It started working its way up to the--into
the top sellers lists.
It made it up to number one in sci-fi, number
one in a few different categories.
And that got the attention of Crown Publishing,
which is an in-print of Random House.
And there's an editor at Crown named Julian
Pavia, and he was thinking about reading it.
He wasn't sure.
And he was talking to a colleague of his named
David Fugate.
And Julian said, "Like, well, I don't know
if I should bother reading it."
You know, he's an editor.
He's got to read a billion books all the time.
And so, he's like, "I don't know if I should
read this.
It seems popular, but at the same time, it
might just be kind of engineering porn.
I don't know."
And so, he said, "David, what do you think?"
And David said, "Well, I'll read it, and I'll
let you know."
So, David read it.
He liked it.
And he said, "Yes, Julian, you should read
it.
Andy, do you need an agent?"
And so, I said, "You know, after three years
of not being able to get an agent, one comes
knocking on my door."
And so, I'm like, "Yes."
And then so, he became my agent.
And then he turned around and said, "Hey,
Julian, how much are you going to give us
for that book?"
So, that was cool.
And then--so, then we had a book deal going
on.
You know, they were negotiating the book deal.
And then, Fox came for the movie rights.
Well, actually, he's not Fox.
He's Simon Kinberg Productions.
But, Fox came for the movie rights right around
this same time.
And I'm like, "Oh, talk to my agent."
And so, these negotiations were going on at
the same time.
The movie rights deal and the book deal were
going on at the same time.
Meanwhile, I'm still working as a software
engineer.
So, I'm in my cubicle, fixing bugs, then stepping
away to take a call about my movie deal, and
then coming back to my cubicle, finish up
that bug.
It was a very surreal time.
And in the end, the print deal and the film
deal were agreed upon four days apart.
So, that was quite a week for me.
So, then it was just really interesting to
be a spectator in the whole movie making process.
The book went great.
You know, it got released.
It made it to the New York Times best seller
list.
And then later on--thank you, thank you, woo
person.
Then when the paperback came out, it made
another appearance on the list.
When that trailer came out, that's when it
bumped it up to number one.
Thank you.
That's what 10 million people seeing a trailer
will do.
Yeah, that's it.
It turns out there's sort of a correlation
between a movie being made of your book and
increased sales.
So, then--but, it's interesting.
When they first come for your book, movie
studios buy film options like breath mints.
I mean they will buy hundreds of film options
for every movie that actually gets made.
So, at the time they came for the movie rights,
it wasn't like, oh, wow, this is going to
be a movie.
It's like, eh, we want to make sure nobody
else can buy it.
And then bit by bit, it just kept getting
more and more likely.
There's no point where you pop the champagne.
It was just like, oh, okay, we have Drew Goddard,
who is, you know, a big-time Hollywood writer.
He wrote Clover Field.
He directed Cabin in the Woods.
He wrote a bunch of episodes of Buffy and
Lost.
He's a big name.
He was going to write and direct it.
So, he wrote the screenplay.
And then, he was set to direct, but then he
got offered the director's chair for the next
Spiderman movie.
So, he left to do that.
So--and then, right around the same time,
Matt Damon took an interest in playing the
lead.
And the studio is like, "That's interesting.
That's something we care about.
That's good to know.
We want to know that."
Now they have a star, but no director.
And then Ridley Scott came in and said he'd
direct.
And the studio is like, "That's interesting."
So, that really made them stand up and take
notice.
And then, things just started falling into
place.
And Aditya can tell you kind of some of the
background there.
But, it's my understanding a lot of stars
worked for less than they would normally do
because they just wanted to be part of the
project.
So, we got this unbelievable cast.
And I'm just sitting there going, "I don't
know what the hell I did right.
But, I'm glad.
Don't poke it.
I don't know what's going to--."
I'll be really honest.
I mean the speed at which this came together
is pretty unprecedented.
And, you know, and you, Andy, as a first-time
novelist and this is the first movie deal
he had, and so, every step of the way, I didn't
want to get him too excited.
But, it was actually kind of incredible what
was going on.
So, I would always downplay it with Andy a
little bit.
And Andy is such a rational guy.
He was like, "Well, let me just figure out
the percentage chance of this actually being
a real thing."
And the next thing you know, you know, we
have this incredible cast, this incredible
filmmaker, Ridley Scott, and hopefully a really
great movie.
Yeah, we'll see.
Speaking of which, I have something else to
show.
I don't know if you guys were interested in--.
[Music]
I don’t even know which language that is?
That Armenian?
Ah ***** me.
Ok, that’s gotta go in there.
Hi kids this is Marc Watney, astronaut I were
about six hours before I launch on the Hermes
and I've been asked by the good folks at NASA
to introduce you to some are crewmates.
Here I which I’m happy to do so, hello earthlings
Marc Watney here I’m your personal guide
on this tour up the Hermes.
***** Astronaut I can do…
[ laughter]
We still rolling…
This is pilot Rick Martinez doing the pre-flight
checks as you can see he's using some pretty
sophisticated math to get us to Mars.
You got enough fingers there Rick?
Just balancing my checkbook.
Hi there, I am commander Melissa Lewis.
Doctor Chris Beck flight surgeon.
My name is Alex Vogel.
I'm a German astronaut.
I’m Beth Johanssen, the computer expert.
That’s it?
***** siked about going to Mars.
Nice that’s a hell of an answer,to the entire
world
Gentleman, why don’t you tell the viewers
what's cooking?
Yoke.
Something, chewy.
And you Herr Vogal
Sausage?
German?
Awesome.
Hello commander big year ahead maybe you could
tell us what inspired you to take it all.
Sure.
Laura Clark, Christa McAuliffe and of course
Eileen Collins.
And you're not going to get a better answer
than that.
Seriously Rick how do we get there?
Well you basically point the bird in that
direction you wait 150 days, 36 million miles
later should be at Mars.
Oh wait.
That’s Uranus.
Okay, that's Mars.
Hey, Hey don’t believe a word they say.
You’re one of the good ones.
Thanks.
Wait who says that about me?
This isn’t over you and me, we’re going
to talk later.
Alright, everyone just a few minutes now before
we leave from Mars.
I hope you enjoyed your tour the Hermes and
see what a stellar crew we have say goodbye
crew.
“goodbye crew.”
Everyone's a comedian.
Alright, we want to say goodbye.
We want to wish everybody here on Earth an
amazing year while we're gone.
Let’s go cubs.
Actually how about holding off on winning
that world title till I'm back on earth.
That shouldn't be a problem.
Shut up Martinez is a Yankee fan.
Anyway I will have a wonderful year
I just remember what we do up there were doing
for everyone here on Earth it's going to be
an amazing journey for all of us we're all
in this together.
Mom, dad, love you.
I miss you and first thing we do when we get
back is go to Gino's for some deep dish.
Watney out.
All right, guys, I think we have time for
a couple of questions, if--I don't know who
has the mic, if anyone has any questions.
Yeah, come to the mics in the center of the
room.
Mad dash.
Hi, guys.
My name is Amanda [sp].
I am a big fan of all of you guys.
I initially wanted to be you guys when I grew
up, discovered I was bad at math, and then
now want to be Andy when I grow up.
So--.
--I'm glad I could be your silver medal.
Thanks.
You're on the right track.
So, in being in the last panel and also the
panel last year, when Buzz Aldrin was here,
which was also awesome, there's been kind
of this somewhat discussion of how there's
kind of this trend towards science fiction
being more like science and the nerdy fan
boys with their "excuse me, that's not right".
And one of my dreams is to be famous enough
and have something successful enough that
Neil deGrasse Tyson told me I'm wrong on Twitter.
In going toward that goal, are there any resources
you guys recommend for research for writers,
for people who are just interested in the
stuff that isn't as publicly known that we
might not know about, stuff that a basic Google
search wouldn't turn up.
A more detailed Google search.
Basically, when I wrote The Martian, I didn't
know anyone in aerospace.
I was on my own.
It took me about three years.
I probably spent about half that time researching,
and all of it was just Google.
Seriously, and about 90 percent of the results
ended up being Wikipedia pages.
So really, it's all out there.
It's just, you know, you've got to dig it
up.
Yeah, the internet really provides an unbelievable
resource to be able to do a phenomenal amount
of original research at a level.
And what Andy has done of course is always
checked a lot of those facts too.
And so, it's a library at your home.
You can't beat it.
Okay, thank you so much.
Hi, my question is more for Todd.
When Space X unfortunately had their anomaly
last week, the dragon spaceship actually survived
the explosion, but they weren't able to deploy
the parachutes because that would be inside
the capsule and deployed by astronauts.
For Orion's abort capabilities, will ground
control be able to deploy parachutes in the
case of an anomaly?
I think for the Orion abort, that's going
to be done by the crew.
So, basically, there's very few signals between
the rocket and Orion itself.
The rocket can say I'm having a bad day.
You need to get off.
And quickly.
Yeah, but essentially it's designed so that
the launch boards knows to pull away from
the rocket and then the chutes deploy and
bring it home safely.
Good question.
You're particularly vested in that knowledge
I think.
Hello.
Okay, wow.
You guys are all so cool.
Okay, so, Andy, yours is my new favorite book
now.
Thank you.
I'm getting it signed on Saturday.
Okay.
But--.
By Andy--?
Yeah, by Andy.
Yeah, see there's this guy outside.
He gave me $3.
He wanted to sign it.
But the question is more for the three of
you in the middle, who according to Andy,
actually put your pants on at your home.
I also put my pants on at home.
Oh, okay.
So there's four.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay, so--.
It even has a zipper.
I don't need to see.
I don't need to see.
But, based on all of the calculations I know
Andy did for this and all of his, you know,
beta readers, do you think that this book
could be kind of more like before you go to
Mars book to read for the astronauts who actually
end up going to Mars?
Like, this is the worst case scenario, be
prepared, type of thing?
I will tell you this.
About a year ago, which I was already a consultant
on the film and I'd been doing a few things.
I went to JSC and I gave a talk at--to the
Astronaut Corp and then later on in that day,
I had an opportunity to talk to the Center
Director, who's also an astronaut, Ellen Ochoa.
And the first thing I did when I sat down
and we just chit-chatted, I said, hey have
you read The Martian?
And she goes, no, I haven't read The Martian.
And so, I told her a little bit about it,
and that was it.
And about two months later, I get his fabulous
email from Ellen.
Jim, I read The Martian.
It's now required reading.
So, maybe that's your answer.
Thank you.
We have a reading list and it is on it.
It's flown around the office.
It's a great read, and I think it's just indicative,
you know, in society at large.
I mean, The Big Bang Theory, you know there
are lots of indicators that this movie--the
success of the book, that we want our intellect
challenged as well as our emotion.
And so I think it's a great question that
you asked and most of us have read it.
I loved it.
Thanks.
I'll add one more thing to that.
In our world, we're pretty OCD about all the
things that could go wrong, but a lot of us
all went to the same schools and learned the
same types of things.
One of the things about an artist and authors
and things like that are that they think differently
about problems.
And one of the things I said about scientists
and engineers complementing each other, the
fact that Mark Watney was a botanist, he solved
the problem of how to get food for himself
so that this idea of being able to crowd source
information in a way that your normal engineer
ain't going to see things, I think, gives
you a better solution.
And so, from that perspective, I agree.
I think it should be required reading.
I'm a big fan.
You guys probably have heard of STEM, Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math of this
new movement.
So, there's a new movement called STEAM, right?
It adds the Arts to it.
Add the arts.
Absolutely.
And so there's an aspect to me of design beauty
in the A portion of STEAM that we really do
need.
And so, Andy, I'm for one--I think most of
the problems we can run into, you've probably
thought about already.
So, if we don't have the book, you're probably
going to be in Mission Control helping us
as a liaison.
We'll probably be on the ticket here.
So, anyway, thank you for that.
Well, thanks.
Just one final thought on that, just people
often ask me, ooh, does you know, NASA ask
your advice on the subject?
I'm like, guys, I'm an enthusiast.
These guys are experts.
There is a big difference.
My job is just to entertain you guys, and
I hope I do that, but there's a huge gulf
of knowledge and training between me and the
people who actually know what they're doing.
And so, don't draw a false equivalency here.
That's all.
All right, I think we've got time for one
last question.
I just want to thank you guys because we're
a race of explorers, and we haven't been as
aggressive as we could be, and I know you're
putting some real feet to this.
So, thanks for getting this out to our sister
planets.
The internet has been abuzz with the Mars
Mission regarding solar radiation and solar
storms.
Can you address what protections to the crew
so that they make it to Mars and back?
Not a problem.
So, indeed, one of the things that we've done,
when we send things to Mars, is have radiation
detectors on them so that we understand the
environment they're in.
And we also do original research in how to
protect humans from cell damage.
And it turns out, there's now a variety of
materials, there's even concepts of being
incased in water.
Of course what we're doing is we constantly
look at the sun.
We constantly predict when another flare will
occur, when another coronal mass ejection
will occur, which does indeed accelerate particles
to high energies and could harm people that
are in the capsule.
And so, our forecasting ability is also getting
much better.
So, all of these things are pointing in the
right direction and as our scientists learn
to forecast and as our medical researchers
learn how to protect the body, that's converging
I believe, into some concrete plans that will--that
we'll be using as we go to Mars.
We also have operational limits on how much
time you can spend in space and so there's
also the mitigation of, you know, once you've
spent so many days in space, you're limited
to how much more flying you can do.
That's something that we watch closely.
We're definitely going to have to reevaluate
and think about how we do that, but it's to
minimize the risk of lifelong problems to
the crew member.
So, there's also operational constraints that
we put to mitigate that problem.
Indications are from the radiation detector
on the Curiosity mission as it went to Mars,
once we've analyzed the data, that it is a
survivable trip.
Now, there's an increased risk in cancer.
Both ways, right?
Both ways.
Okay.
Well, you know, NASA does take that philosophy.
This is another thing I really like about
the book and that is indeed, we don't plan
on leaving anyone there.
So, it is a plan to be able to go, but also
to return.
And that's a critical ailment of the whole
NASA philosophy.
All right, well, Jim?
So, not to have a spoiler, but indeed there's
a capability that we've put out on the web.
It's called "Mars Track".
If you go to the NASA booth and you pick up
one of these brochures, you can go through
your browser and be able to browse Mars at
reasonably high resolution.
We're constantly improving it, and Mark Watney's
trip is going to be available for you to also
take that journey.
All right, guys.
Well, thank you so much.
Give it up for this panel.
Thank you, very much.
Go see The Martian October 2nd, but even more,
let's go to Mars.
Thank you.
Let's go to Mars.
