Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

NASA Spots the 'Great Pumpkin': Halloween Asteroid a Treat for Radar Astronomers

Halloween is coming and maybe you will be out in the Pumpkin Patch with Charlie Brown.

When you look up maybe you can catch sight of asteroid 2015 TB145. (with a telescope)

I think we are getting better at finding these asteroids sooner but a good thing it is going to miss and too bad we can't stick a transponder on it.

- LRK -
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NASA Spots the 'Great Pumpkin': Halloween Asteroid a Treat for Radar Astronomers
October 21, 2015

NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. The asteroid will fly past Earth at a safe distance slightly farther than the moon's orbit on Oct. 31 at 10:05 a.m. PDT (1:05 p.m. EDT). Scientists are treating the flyby of the estimated 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity, allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 was discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) on Haleakala, Maui, part of the NASA-funded Near-Earth Object Observation (NEOO) Program. According to the catalog of near-Earth objects (NEOs) kept by the Minor Planet Center, this is the closest currently known approach by an object this large until asteroid 1999 AN10, at about 2,600 feet (800 meters) in size, approached at about 1 lunar distance (238,000 miles from Earth) in August 2027.

"The trajectory of 2015 TB145 is well understood," said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than about 300,000 miles -- 480,000 kilometers or 1.3 lunar distances. Even though that is relatively close by celestial standards, it is expected to be fairly faint, so night-sky Earth observers would need at least a small telescope to view it."

The gravitational influence of the asteroid is so small it will have no detectable effect on the moon or anything here on Earth, including our planet's tides or tectonic plates.
...
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

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As FOX News reports..
Has YouTube and the JPL orbit image.
- LRK -

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Asteroid the size of Empire State Building to pass incredibly close to Earth on Halloween
A massive asteroid is expected to pass by Earth on Halloween in the closest fly-by since 2006.

NASA discovered the asteroid, dubbed 2015 TB145 on Oct. 10 using Pan-STARRS 1.

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NBC-2 - With YouTube and Ad.

- LRK -

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Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth on Halloween

Posted: Oct 21, 2015 8:09 AM PDT 
Updated: Oct 21, 2015 8:10 AM PDT

(CNN) -- Don't look now, but an asteroid is heading our way on Halloween.

On the other hand, go ahead and look. As it misses Earth by about 300,000 miles (slightly farther away than the moon), the asteroid, named 2015 TB145, will be visible to those with good telescopes -- and NASA, which announced the discovery.

Calling it "one of the best radar targets of the year," a Jet Propulsion Laboratory report on the asteroid said that "the flyby presents a truly outstanding scientific opportunity to study the physical properties of this object."

The asteroid will be traveling through Orion on October 30-31.

It's a good thing it will miss, though. The asteroid is estimated to be 300 to 600 meters wide and traveling at 78,000 mph. By comparison, the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 was about 20 meters wide.

...

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Thanks for looking up with me, 
- LRK -
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Goldstone Radar Observations Planning: 2009 FD and 2015 TB145
...
2015 TB145
2015 TB145 was discovered on 2015 Oct 10 by the Pan-STARRS I survey.  The object will approach the Earth
within 0.00326 au (1.3 Lunar distances or about 490 000 km) on 2015 Oct 31 at about 17:00 UT (10 AM PDT).  
The asteroid is in an extremely eccentric (~0.86) and
high inclination (~40 deg) orbit.  It has a Tisserand parameter of 2.937 hinting that it may be
cometary in nature.  Its absolute magnitude of 19.8 indicates that its diameter is probably within a factor of two
of 320 meters.  At closest approach the SNRs/run at DSS-14 are expected to be over 20000, so this should
be one of the best radar targets of the year.  We hope to obtain images with a range resolution as high
as 2 m/pixel using DSS-13 to transmit and Green Bank (and possibly Arecibo) to receive.  The flyby presents
a truly outstanding scientific opportunity to study the physical properties of this object.

The encounter velocity is 35 km/s, which is unusually high.  

This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance 
in August 2027.  The last approach closer than this by an object with H < 20 was by 2004 XP14 in July 2006 at 
1.1 lunar distances.  
...
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How asteroids can help us reach Mars

(CNN)If you've read or seen "The Martian," you know that getting humans safely to Mars and back will be a gargantuan task.

Unlike a mission to the moon, which can be done in three or four days, a journey to Mars -- some 140 million miles away -- could take more than six months each way. For a trip that long, astronauts would need to set up a network of supply depots in deep space to refuel their spacecraft.

But how? As crazy as it sounds, one answer is -- asteroid mining.
...
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Here is to looking up.

It has been a couple of weeks already since I saw "The Martian" and I was waiting for the book to arrive.  It has arrived! Reading!
I also bought The Sentinel Hardcover – 1983 by Arthur C. Clarke and Golden Apples of the Sun, The Paperback – November 1, 1997 by Ray Bradbury, so I must admit I have had my head in books rather than looking up.

Paul.Slootweg sent me a reminder that you can never be too young to look up. (see below)

I think this is great and certainly what will help us to really make it happen if the kids don't lose the dream by the time they grow up.

Hopefully your school system has some teachers that will help them learn how to turn their dreams into reality.

Build the electric motor out of nails and bell wire. :-)  [as we did in my fourth grade class with Mr. Peavy]


- LRK -
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Per Paul Slootweg -

My son (James) went to a parents evening at my grandson's (Dylan)
nursery (preschool) today.
Dylan will be 3 come next February.

Anyway, one reported exchange with one of the staff goes as follows:

Dylan: "I'm going to the Moon on my rocket."

Staff: "What will you see on the Moon?"

Dylan: "The Earth."

I think it's profound that he can handle that concept already.

(Mind you, he can also name more dinosaurs than you or I can think of!)

By all means share this little tale with the others Looking Up. I'm
mightily proud of both my son and his!
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If you have too much light pollution to actually look up and see much then maybe a substitute is look on-line.

- LRK -

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Inline image 1
The Martian is good and having seen the movie first was enjoyable..
It was fun seeing more detail in the book and the 3D imaging in the Movie was helpful as well.
I hope we get as much detail from real missions to the Moon and Mars, should I live that long. :-)

- LRK -

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5 Big Differences Between The Martian Book And The Movie
BY MIKE REYES

If you're looking for a good time at the movies, The Martian is a steely eyed missile man of entertainment. With a nearly record breaking opening for the first weekend in October, the Ridley Scott directed / Drew Goddard written adaptation of Andy Weir's best-selling novel is pretty faithful to the text. But despite Mark Watney's smart-assed humor and scientific prowess still making the grade, along with the scores of other details most inferior adaptations would forget, there are still five major changes that the film adaptation has made. While these changes don't ruin The Martian at all, they are still big enough that they should be discussed.
  

The Epilogue
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Images from Google search.
- LRK -

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More images of Earth
- LRK -

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Thanks for looking up with me, 
- LRK -
==============================================================

The Sentinel Hardcover – 1983

by Arthur C. Clarke  (Author), Lebbeus Woods (Illustrator)
The story that inspired 2001: A Space Odyssey and other masterworks of science fiction.
...

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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380730391

Golden Apples of the Sun, The Paperback – November 1, 1997


Ray Bradbury is a modern cultural treasure. His disarming simplicity of style underlies a towering body of work unmatched in metaphorical power by any other American storyteller. And here, presented in a new trade edition, are thirty-two of his most famous tales--prime examples of the poignant and mysterious poetry which Bradbury uniquely uncovers in the depths of the human soul, the otherwordly portraits of outre fascination which spring from the canvas of one of the centurys great men of imagination. From a lonely coastal lighthouse to a sixty-million-year-old safari, from the pouring rain of Venus to the ominous silence of a murder scene, Ray Bradbury is our sure-handed guide not only to surprising and outrageous manifestations of the future, but also to the wonders of the present that we could never have imagined on our own.
...
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Wednesday, October 07, 2015

The Martian movie vs book

Well the movie, "The Martian" is out and I have seen it twice.  (science errors and all)
I am still waiting for a copy of, "The Martian: A Novel" to arrive by snail mail. :-)

I have received heads up notes about "The Martian" and how 20th Century Fox version might have been entertaining but strayed some from good science.  Not having read the book yet, I don't have any first hand information how much Andy Weir followed scientific rigor.  His pre-release interviews admits to a few slights for entertainment license so thought I would ask the Internet for some other opinions.

Hmmm, you may find some of the reports of interest.

What I am interested in is seeing what might interest folks that would help in developing the Moon in preparation for being Spacefaring 
Do we want to look in on how we can engineer the problem or look for an Indy 500 car crash.

It wasn't long after Apollo 11 landing that the audience interest dropped off.
Come Apollo 13 problem and much interest.  
Will they make it back, will they be lost, tune in for the 6 o'clock news.
Much like the Saturday Matinee's I attended as a kid, will Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon save the world?


This from the link.
- LRK -
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[Serials were a popular form of movie entertainment dating back to Edison's What Happened to Mary? of 1912. There appear to be older serials, however, such as the 1910 Deutsche Vitaskop 5 episode Arsene Lupin Contra Sherlock Holmes, based upon the Maurice LeBlanc novel,[1] and a possible but unconfirmed Raffles serial in 1911.[2] Usually filmed with low budgets, serials were action-packed stories that usually involved a hero (or heroes) battling an evil villain and rescuing a damsel in distress. The villain would continually place the hero into inescapable deathtraps, or the heroine would be placed into a deathtrap and the hero would bravely come to her rescue, usually pulling her away from certain death only moments before she met her doom. The hero and heroine would face one trap after another, battling countless thugs and lackeys, before finally defeating the villain.

Many famous clichés of action-adventure movies had their origins in the serials. The popular term cliffhanger was developed as a plot device in film serials (though its origins have been traced by some historians to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle or the earlier A pair of blue eyes by Thomas Hardy from 1873), and it comes from the many times that the hero or heroine would end up hanging over a cliff, usually as the villain gloated above and waited for them to plummet thousands of feet to their deaths. Other popular clichés included the heroine or hero trapped in a burning building, being trampled by horses, knocked unconscious in a car as it goes over a cliff, crashing in an airplane, and watching as the burning fuse of a nearby bundle of dynamite sparked and sputtered its way towards the deadly explosive (at the beginning of the next chapter the endangered character usually simply got up and walked away with only minor scrapes). The popular Indiana Jones movies are a well-known, romantic pastiche of the serials' clichéd plot elements and devices.]
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It will be interesting to read Andy Weir's "The Martian: The Novel" and see if his interest in Sherlock Holmes comes through.
It will also be interesting to see if maybe the movie industry was interested in making a good "Cliffhanger" movie with maybe a bit more budget.
As of October 4, 2015The Martian has grossed $54.3 million in North America and $44.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $98.9 million, against a budget of $108 million.[4][59] 
- LRK -

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"The Martian" and real Martians
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The film adaptation of the bestselling novel "The Martian" opened to rave reviews and a big box office take this weekend, days after NASA also announced evidence of liquid water on the surface of present-day Mars. Jeff Foust examines what effect -- if any -- these events could have on NASA's plans for actual human missions to the Red Planet.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2837/1

Inline image 1
The Martian movie vs book

Well "The Martian" movie is out and I am still waiting for a copy of the "The Martian: A Novel"
- LRK -

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Book to Screen: ‘The Martian’ Leaves Science on the Page and Goes for Thrills on Screen

BY MATT GOLDBERG

Andy Weir’s self-published novel The Martian became a huge bestseller, and it was a big hit at the box office this weekend. The film also went over big with critics, and is primed to be a potential player in this year’s Oscar race. But for director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard to translate Weir’s book to the big screen, how much did they have to lose, and what did they choose to keep?

Looking at the skeleton of the story, Goddard kept Weir’s book intact. It’s a movie where there’s plenty of subtraction, especially where Mark Watney’s various duties and missions are concerned (more on that later), but Goddard basically condensed the narrative to fit a 130-minute runtime. However, there are no radical changes. Just subtraction.

The biggest removal comes in the third act when in the book, Watney is driving to the Ares IV landing site, and because he accidentally shorted out his communications, he doesn’t know that a storm is coming to make his journey even more difficult. Goddard removes all of this. Watney never shorts out his communications array, and there’s never a dust storm to avoid on the way to Schiaparelli. It’s the smoothest sailing he encounters until he has to launch himself off the planet.

...
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Will let you pick the links if interested.
- LRK -

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5 Big Differences Between The Martian Book And The Movie
BY MIKE REYES

If you're looking for a good time at the movies, The Martian is a steely eyed missile man of entertainment. With a nearly record breaking opening for the first weekend in October, the Ridley Scott directed / Drew Goddard written adaptation of Andy Weir's best-selling novel is pretty faithful to the text. But despite Mark Watney's smart-assed humor and scientific prowess still making the grade, along with the scores of other details most inferior adaptations would forget, there are still five major changes that the film adaptation has made. While these changes don't ruin The Martian at all, they are still big enough that they should be discussed.
 

The Epilogue
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For me, the log book entry scheme let me know what was going without needing to have a third person, talk over announcer.
NASA Mourns Loss of Former Launch Commentator, Jack King
John W. (Jack) King, former chief of Public Information at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, died June 11, 2015 He was 84.
- LRK -

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http://www.space.com/30699-the-martian-movie-space-book-review.html
Does 'The Martian' Movie Do the Book Justice? Yes. Yes, It Does

Movies adapted from successful books don't always capture the magic of the original text — and the calculation- and science-heavy story of "The Martian" seems a particularly tough customer — but the upcoming film does a surprisingly good job conjuring the book's spirit. The new movie, opening Friday, trades some of the book's nonstop danger for glorious Martian vistas and more NASA at work, and I'm not complaining.

As a quick note, this article doesn't spoil major plot points but does discuss the major themes of the book and movie.

The movie "The Martian," is based on Andy Weir's book of the same name, and tells the story of an astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars and must struggle to survive. When watching "The Martian," all I could think was that the movie version of protagonist Mark Watney had it easy. Sure, almost everything he does goes sideways and presents a new challenge for him to ponder, calculate and build his way out of. But there are a lot of major problems presented in the book that movie-Watney doesn't encounter while stranded on Mars, and several complicated, clever solutions he never has to devise. [Watch: How to Kill (or Save) a Martian – Author Andy Weir Knows!]

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Another chance to hear from the author of the book.
- LRK -

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Here’s what ‘The Martian’ author had to say about those book-to-movie changes

SPOILERS FOR “THE MARTIAN” BOOK AND MOVIE LIE AHEAD!


Ridley Scott’s adaptation of “The Martian” stays rather true to the novel that inspired the movie. But for you fans of the book about an astronaut stranded on Mars, you may still be wondering about some parts of the book that were altered for the movie.
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Weir told Tech Insider that Goddard and Scott incorporated his feedback into the script.
- LRK -

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http://www.techinsider.io/the-martian-book-versus-movie-scenes-2015-96 amazing plot twists that are missing from 'The Martian' movie
Kelly Dickerson
Oct. 3, 2015, 10:03 PM

When Andy Weir published his sci-fi novel "The Martian," readers praised his attention to detail and scientific accuracy
It's arguably the reason the book became a bestseller and, now, a blockbuster movie.

...
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The Martian is a 2015 American[nb 1] science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. The film is based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel The Martian, which was adapted into a screenplay by Drew Goddard. Damon stars as an astronaut who is incorrectly presumed dead and left behind on the planet Mars, and who then fights to survive. The film also features Jessica Chastain,Kristen WiigJeff DanielsMichael PeñaKate MaraSean BeanSebastian StanAksel Hennie, andChiwetel Ejiofor in supporting roles.
...
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I now waiting for book, "THE MARTIAN", to arrive and will see how print reads.
As for going to the Moon or Mars, I think we need to consider if we just want to be entertained for a short time or whether we are ready take on the opportunity to engineer the many exciting problems to become truly Spacefaring .  

Thanks for looking up with me, and ask that youngster if they would like to help "Make it so!"  :-)
- LRK -
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Mars to Stay missions propose astronauts sent to Mars for the first time should intend to stay. Unused emergency return vehicles would be recycled into settlement construction as soon as the habitability of Mars becomes evident to the initial pioneers. Mars to Stay missions are advocated both to reduce cost and to ensure permanent settlement of Mars. Among many notable Mars to Stay advocates, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been particularly outspoken, suggesting in numerous forums "Forget the Moon, Let’s Head to Mars!"[1] and, in June 2013, Aldrin promoted a manned mission "to homestead Mars and become a two-planet species."[2] In August 2015, Aldrin, in association with the Florida Institute of Technology, presented a "master plan", for NASA consideration, for astronauts, with a "tour of duty of ten years", to colonize Mars before the year 2040.[3] The Mars Underground, Mars Homestead Foundation, Mars One, and Mars Artists Community advocacy groups and business organizations have also adopted Mars to Stay policy initiatives.[4]

The earliest formal outline of a Mars to Stay mission architecture was given at the Case for Mars VI Workshop in 1996, during a presentation by George Herbert titled "One Way to Mars."[5]
...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3030477/Is-Nasa-secretly-planning-moon-Expert-says-agency-mount-lunar-mission-going-Mars.html
Is Nasa secretly planning to go back to the moon? Expert says agency will mount lunar mission before going to Mars
  • Science reporter Eric Berger says Nasa is considering moon mission
  • Previously the agency was planning on going straight to Mars
  • Mr Berger says it signals a shift in priorities for the space agency
  • In recent months experts have weighed in on the moon or Mars debate 
By JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 10:14 EST, 8 April 2015 | UPDATED: 10:42 EST, 8 April 2015
The goal instead was to visit an asteroid in the 2020s, and then send a crew to Mars in the 2030s - with no mission to another destination in between.

Recently, Nasa revealed how they plan to do the asteroid mission - by picking up a boulder from a larger asteroid, placing it in lunar orbit, and having astronauts go and visit.

But Mr Berger says that Nasa has been ‘quietly’ considering going back to the moon before going to Mars.

He said that Nasa is, ‘in internal studies, reconsidering the moon, including the lunar surface, for human activities as a significant stepping stone to Mars.’

He continued: ‘William Gerstenmaier, the chief of human exploration for Nasa, does not see the existing plan of a direct, 900-day mission to the red planet as achievable.’

In a tweet Nasa’s Head of Communications, David Weaver, seemingly quashed the significance of the news, saying: ‘Nothing new about #NASA plan to use Moon on #JourneyToMars.’

However, Mr Berger says it is significant, as the agency had previously shied away from saying it was returning to the moon.
...
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Monday, October 05, 2015

Duck Tape, MacGyver, "The Martian" - book and movie

I have been looking at movie trailers for "The Martian" and decided to go to the movies.
I live in the dark ages and had never gone to a movie in "3D".  
Probably to cheap to pay for glasses.

I waited for the previous showing to finish and folks to file out.  The lights came on and I was the first one in.  A bit early as the cleaning crew came in and proceeded to fill a very large trash can with popcorn and drink containers and other trash.  

Talked with them while standing out of the way.  
October 2, 2015 was the opening weekend and it seems some of the relatives of the author, Andy Weir, had seen the movie earlier.
(Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory is just over the hill from Tracy and he had programmed at Sandia.)

The theater's previews were shown in ear splitting sound level that made me wish I had brought ear plugs and thought I would go deaf for a whole movie.  I was very pleasantly surprised when "The Martian" started and everything was at an appropriate sound level for the action being portrayed and the "3D" viewing was like we were there for real.  No silly jumping out of a screen.  Nice and added to the realism.

Having watched a number of the trailers and YouTube interviews I appreciated, and expected to see the Duck Tape and MacGyver, can do attitude.  I was not disappointed. I laughed at one liners, had tears in my eyes at unexpected moments, and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure.

No matter the Martian wind would probably not been able to blow things around at the start of the movie, I am sure a real mission would have enough of its own problems to test ones survival instincts.  It was interesting to see how Mark Watney handled his.

I also appreciated how the movie managed to have enough camera monitors to provide statistical and personal information to update the full movie camera presentation.

All in all I thought well done.  

I had not read the book so have ordered a used one.  Watching the YouTube interviews we get to see the movie teaser trailer and here about how he managed to get published.  That in itself was enlightening.  A lot of work, writing, while working, and developing a website and going finally to post the book on line in several forms and then posting to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

There has been some question as to whether NASA has taken advantage or made announcements about water on Mars to coincide with the movie release.  I will let you check out the links that follow and make your own opinion.

- LRK -

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"The Martian" and real Martians
---
The film adaptation of the bestselling novel "The Martian" opened to rave reviews and a big box office take this weekend, days after NASA also announced evidence of liquid water on the surface of present-day Mars. Jeff Foust examines what effect -- if any -- these events could have on NASA's plans for actual human missions to the Red Planet.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2837/1

Inline image 1
Just as Mark Watney, the central character of the book and film The Martian, used this rover to make a long-distance trek across the surface of Mars, some Mars advocates hope the film helps power NASA’s own long-term plans to send humans there. (credit: 20th Century Fox)
...
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A bit from NASA
- LRK -

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Nine Real NASA Technologies in 'The Martian'
Aug 19, 2015
Mars has held a central place in human imagination and culture for millennia. Ancients marveled at its red color and the brightness that waxed and waned in cycles over the years. Early observations through telescopes led some to speculate that the planet was covered with canals that its inhabitants used for transportation and commerce. In “The War of the Worlds”, the writer H.G. Wells posited a Martian culture that would attempt to conquer Earth. In 1938, Orson Welles panicked listeners who thought they were listening to a news broadcast rather than his radio adaptation of Wells’s novel.

The real story of humans and Mars is a little more prosaic but no less fascinating. Telescopes turned the bright red dot in the sky into a fuzzy, mottled disk that gave rise to those daydreams of canals. Just 50 years ago, the first photograph of Mars from a passing spacecraft appeared to show a hazy atmosphere. Now decades of exploration on the planet itself has shown it to be a world that once had open water, an essential ingredient for life.

The fascination hasn’t waned, even in the Internet Age. A former computer programmer named Andy Weir, who enjoyed writing for its own sake and posted fiction to his blog, started a serial about a NASA astronaut stranded on Mars. The popularity ultimately led him to turn it into a successful novel, “The Martian”, which has been made into a movie that will be released in October 2015.

“The Martian” merges the fictional and factual narratives about Mars, building upon the work NASA and others have done exploring Mars and moving it forward into the 2030s, when NASA astronauts are regularly traveling to Mars and living on the surface to explore. Although the action takes place 20 years in the future, NASA is already developing many of the technologies that appear in the film....
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In the interviews Andy Weir mentions he has a website that isn't the greatest but he could post chapters serially and get feedback from his readers.  He mentions that after the book publishing they asked for some changes. (no more free copies)
- LRK -

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There are some comments to Andy Weir on his website.
- LRK -
...
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The YouTube links following will probably start off with the earlier
TEASER TRAILER for "The Martian".
A later one is labeled the OFFICIAL TRAILER.

The Martian | Teaser Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX
The Martian | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Andy Weir's trip to LLNL
- LRK -
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Author of ‘The Martian’ thrills Lab employees
Published on Sep 4, 2015
Imagine being inadvertently left for dead on Mars, completely alone and abandoned by your crew, with nothing but your wits and a scant amount of precious supplies to keep you alive.

That’s the enthralling premise of the best-selling science-fiction survival novel and soon-to-be released motion picture, “The Martian,” scheduled to run in theaters nationwide on Oct. 2.

Amidst a whirlwind media blitz, the book’s author, Andy Weir, took time to visit the Laboratory on Wednesday, entertaining a packed house of nearly 400 Lab employees and special guests with his wit, vast and varied scientific knowledge and tales of his sudden rise to stardom.

“It’s kind of a homecoming,” Weir said. “It’s special for me because it’s where I grew up.”

Read more about Andy's visit to LLNL:
...
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These trips are just before the October 2 opening.
- LRK -

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"The Martian" Visits JSC
Published on Sep 15, 2015
On Sept. 15, NASA’s Johnson Space Center hosted the media and cast members of the soon-to-be-released 20th Century Fox movie, “The Martian, for a variety of events offering a fresh perspective on NASA’s Journey to Mars and the confluence between the science fiction of the movie and NASA’s science fact, on which the film is based. NASA innovation is fueling the Journey to Mars, and information about the cutting edge technology being developed by NASA is available at: http://go.nasa.gov/1NqheRR.
...
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Comic-Con: Journey to Mars and The Martian

Published on Aug 19, 2015
For the second year in a row, NASA participated in Comic-Con International in San Diego.

NASA experts took part in two panel discussions during the conference on Thursday, July 9.

NASA's participation continues the agency's efforts to engage and inspire the next generation of American innovators and explorers in our #JourneyToMars.
...
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You may like this interview if you like Adam Savage and his TV program.
Adam asks a lot of newbie questions.
- LRK -

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Adam Savage Interviews 'The Martian' Author Andy Weir - The Talking Room

Published on Jun 11, 2015
Adam Savage welcomes author Andy Weir to The Talking Room! Andy wrote 'The Martian', the story of an astronaut stranded on Mars--it's a book we can't recommend enough. Adam and Andy talk about the research that went into writing the book, the portrayal of astronauts in fiction, and the upcoming film adaptation!

Thanks to Andy Weir! Find out more about his books at http://www.andyweirauthor.com/
...
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I now waiting for book, "THE MARTIAN", to arrive and will see how print reads.

Thanks for looking up with me
- LRK -
Published on Jul 25, 2015
Exclusive Interview with Andy Weir by Vera Mulyani for Mars City Design. July 18th 2015.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film)
The Martian is a 2015 American[nb 1] science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. The film is based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel The Martian, which was adapted into a screenplay by Drew Goddard. Damon stars as an astronaut who is incorrectly presumed dead and left behind on the planet Mars, and who then fights to survive. The film also features Jessica Chastain,Kristen WiigJeff DanielsMichael PeñaKate MaraSean BeanSebastian StanAksel Hennie, andChiwetel Ejiofor in supporting roles.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Moon and Mars - Videos

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