U.S. – Recently, a movie directed by Ridley Scott named “The Martian” was screened for real astronauts. The film is starred by Matt Damon and he plays a role where he has to survive on Mars for more than a year. Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly, both tweeted a photo watching the movie on board the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday.

Kjell Lindgren is a current NASA astronaut and he launched to the ISS as part of the Expedition 4445 on July this year. On the other side, Kelly is an American astronaut, an engineer and a retired U.S. Navy Captain. He has been in three previous missions and he was selected for a special year-long mission in the ISS, which began in March this year and he is serving as the space station’s operations branch chief.

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Credit: themartian.net

Additionally, Kelly has an identical twin brother who is a former astronaut. He and his relative are the only siblings to have traveled in space. Both Lindgren and Kelly are forming for future missions

Furthermore, the movie will also be screened for other scientists such as Kiran Kumar, who is an indian space scientist and the chairman of the India Space Research Organization and to Subbiah Arunan – an Indian scientist and Padma Shri awardee, who is known for his role in the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) of the Indian Space Research Organization -. The film will be transmitted at Bengaluru on Thursday, 7:00pm.

The Movie

The Martian is a science-fiction movie, that tells a story of an enterprising scientist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is stranded on Mars because his crew thought he was dead after a fierce storm they all had experienced. Damon must use his wits in order to survive with few resources and also to find a way to communicate with Earth, so he can confirm that he is alive.

“The driving force of the film is Watney’s (Damon) Popular Mechanics-style approach to surviving on Mars for almost two years. He measures, calculates, builds, experiments and blows thing up. He adapts communications devices and mulches Mars dirt with his own waste to create soil for growing food.” the Wall Street Journal reported.

The movie will be available in the United Kingdom on 30 September and arrives in the United States on 2 October.

Real Journey to Mars

Currently, NASA is setting up everything so that in a future humans can enjoy a journey to Mars. Getting astronauts to the second smallest planet in the Solar System is an extremely difficult engineering challenge.

Thus, several simulating missions have been launched in order to acquire more knowledge and understanding about how it would be to be in a long mission in Mars. Also, to prepare scientists and astronauts for a future long duration Mars mission.

For instance, a few months ago, NASA revealed a simulating space mission named “Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission III”, to test the interaction among the ones involved. According to NASA suggestions, 2030 could be the year when humans travel to Mars.

Source: The Guardian