Space itself is so vital to our humanity. The exploration of the vast cosmos right outside of Earth goes a much longer way than simply accomplishing a goal. The discovery of new space entities actually helps all of humankind better understand our purpose in this universe, and adds another clue to the complex science behind every single thing around us. The Martian by Andy Weir perfectly captures this very notion of space achievement and how it ties to our humanity. It is the greatest space novel of our era.

But first, I want to show you a few examples of why space is actually significant to humankind. This is Yuri Gagarin, and on April 12, 1961, he became the first human ever to step foot outside of Earth, into space. This was only 6 decades ago from today (2021); and it was on this day that humankind had made an historic achievement, marking the real beginning of space exploration.

The image above represents Cygnus X-1, the first blackhole to ever be discovered in 1964. This discovery was actually the missing puzzle piece to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which gave us a huge clue to how gravity actually works. This also gave birth to the thousands of scientific theories that exist today, all based off of this discovery.

In 1992, the first exoplanets were discovered. This gave us humans reason to believe, now seeing it with our own eyes, that there were other habitable planets out there besides Earth, adding to the terrifying fact that we were possibly not alone in this Universe.

This is SpaceX’s vision to put humans on Mars by 2030. All of this tech that you see in this photo already exists to some degree, proving we already are in the future. The Colonization of Mars is disturbingly close to reality, and we will be fortunate enough to be alive to witness it.

So by now, I hope you have a better understanding to why space innovation, achievement, and discovery is so paramount and ground-breaking. This all ties in with The Martian because it represents everything extraordinary about space, mainly through its elements of human ingenuity, hard science fiction, and human struggle.

In this book, Mark Watney the main protagonist, is stranded alone on Mars, who also happens to be a botanist. In short, he has to find a way to survive long enough for a space shuttle from Earth to come pick him up and bring him safely back home. This makes the story so riveting because only relying on himself, Mark has to rely on his own knowledge and ingenuity to overcome this seemingly impossible task.

Not only does this novel tell a compelling story of a stranded astronaut on Mars, it does so through hard science fiction. Meaning, all scientific laws were obeyed and is accurate and logical. Otherwise, the story wouldn’t have as much of an impact if there was just a magical wand to save the day. In addition, the element of hard science fiction causes half of the problems to be created by Mark himself, making the story so gripping to dive into.

But the most important element of this novel, is its display of human struggle. This story is an isolation story like no other, Mark Watney is completely isolated being the only human on mars. Unlike Lord of the Flies or the television show Lost, help is actually millions of miles away and there is no one to talk to. This severe isolation progressively gets worse throughout the story and you get to really see the disturbing effects on Mark. Later in the story, the realities of man is brilliantly shown when the leaders at Nasa begin to give up on saving Mark. Bureaucracy gets in the way and political agendas, cost vs. value discourses, and authoritative issues begin to put a major strain on the task of saving Mark Watney. Likewise, this element is very similar to our situation today with Covid-19, where governments and authority leaders have their own personal agendas to benefit themselves rather than focus on the real ultimate task, which is to save lives.

So why is the element of “human ingenuity” so important for a great space novel? Wouldn’t you rather read about the crazy technological developments of aliens in the year 3500? Well, it inspires the notion of going beyond human expectation, ironically. The novel becomes relatable when you read about a human achieving an impossible task, and makes you think that you could do just the same, or even better.

Now why is being empathetic so vital to our humanity? In a novel or not, human empathy is the closest thing we have to our morality, and if we aren’t careful, we can become imperialistic and cruel.

Throughout this blog, I have repeatedly touched on the topic on why space is so important. You might find yourself asking, why is exploring the unknown so significant? To make it simple and clear, it gives YOU the sense that anything is possible. When something is learned or realized for the first time, you begin to really see that nothing is limiting human capability. History has shown time and time again that anything is possible and if that’s a recurring theme, then go do what makes you the most happy and excel. You DO NOT need the validation of others to achieve something, it only requires your own belief. And like Theodore Roosevelt said, “believe you can and you’re halfway there.”