'Martian' author Andy Weir carefully mixes science with fiction
Self-described nerd wanted his space flight story as real as possible
LOS ANGELES - The film "The Martian" has been praised for its scientific accuracy.
Of course, when the author of the novel on which the film is based is the son of a particle physicist father and an electrical engineer mother, the odds of that greatly increase.
"My dad did encourage me," said Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian. "He is a proper nerd [and] I'm like him. For Mom, electrical engineering was a job, not a passion - but she encouraged me to read a lot. So I guess a combination of that made me a sci-fi writer."
Because of his upbringing, Weir was a harsh critic of what he saw as science-fantasy being passed off as science-fiction.
"I'm really into this stuff," he said. "So, I tend to get taken out of a sci-fi story if I see blatant inaccuracies in physics. I don't mind if people make up their own physics . . . as long as they're internally consistent. But that's why it was really important for me to get the science in 'The Martian' right."
Weir laughed when asked why his book - and so many others - focus on Mars, rather than other planets.
"I think there's a general public awareness that Mars is the next frontier," he said. "We've been to the moon and Mars is the next, obvious new place for humans to go."
"Everyone knows this. So it's what we're turning our attention to. We're starting to swarm the planet with satellites and litter the surface with probes. We are focusing on Mars now as a global society [and] are interested in what's going on there, all with an eye toward an eventual manned mission, which has captured the public's imagination."
Weir says his book came about by him figuring out exactly how a manned Mars mission would work and the result is something he describes as " 'Apollo 13' meets 'Cast Away.' "
"That's the kind of dork I am," he said. "I was like,'How do we get people to Mars?' I started to realize all the different scenarios might make for an interesting story and I created an unfortunate protagonist and subjected him to all of them."