In response to a NASA challenge, 3D design firm Fabulous designed the Sfero – a burrowing robot that 3D prints homes on Mars. The Sfero will access the iron in the Martian soil and the permafrost that NASA believes is underground to create a dome-shaped habitat that Mark Watney could only dream of.
Produced by Rob Ludacer
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For years, a team of NASA scientists had pondered over the enigmatic dark streaks lining the inner and outer faces of craters on the Martian surface, shown below.
But no longer.
NASA announced the answer to the conundrum Monday: The streaks are evidence of flowing water.
Most mysterious about these streaks — which can be as long as a football field— was that they appeared to change in size over time, growing longer during Mars' warm summer months and shrinking during colder seasons:
If these photos were taken on Earth, the immediate conclusion would be flowing water. But this is Mars, a place where liquid water had never before been discovered.
All that changed Monday when the NASA team announced that these dark, mysterious features were, indeed, flowing water.
There are many pieces that had to fit together to finally conclude, beyond a doubt, that this was water and not a bizarre pattern from Martian weather. One of the convincing pieces of evidence was that the streaks flow downhill, as shown here:
And here:
But what ultimately convinced the team that it was water, instead of another form of liquid, was when they used instruments onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite in orbit around the Red Planet.
MRO has an instrument called a spectrometer, which scans the Martian surface and identifies the chemical makeup of what's down there. From these scans, the team identified hydrated salts within the dark streaks.
The importance of these salts is that they "would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine, just as salt on roads here on Earth causes ice and snow to melt more rapidly," NASA explained in a press release.
Here's a false-color image showing how prevalent these streaks are:
This means that frozen salt water could thaw into a liquid at lower temperatures, which is important since the hottest days on Mars only reach about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Whether the streaks themselves are flowing water or simply the result of it is still a mystery.
Nevertheless, "the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks," Lujendra Ojha, of the Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author on the paper describing the team's findings, said.
The team identified a handful of places on Mars with evidence of these hydrated salts. In the map below, red triangles indicate where rovers have identified hydrated salts in the past. Blue triangles point to where the team found evidence for the salts:
The scientists don't know yet where this water is coming from and how much of it exists.
"Now that we know what we're looking for, we can begin to better search and look and see if there is an aquifer network supplying these, but that is actually the next step," Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters, said during the media briefing.
Check out the briefing in the video below or on YouTube:
Scientists are getting closer to determining whether life exists on Mars, having confirmed that liquid water flows there.
Though water is one ingredient needed for life, the red planet is still a rough place for humans: It's cold and full of deserts, and it has very little oxygen or gravity.
The average annual temperature on Mars is minus 64 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius).
At its hottest, Mars could hit 80 Fahrenheit (26.6 Celsius) near the equator in the middle of the day.
In the Martian winter, however, temperatures could fall to minus 199 Fahrenheit (minus 128.3 Celsius).
Obviously the first requirement for visiting Mars would be a spacesuit. Teams of scientists are dedicated to designing just the right getup for deep-space missions.
But we were curious: How long could someone survive a summer day on Mars without all this fancy equipment, say, wearing only jeans and a T-shirt while holding his or her breath, which the average human can do for a little more than a minute.
Well, not very long.
"The most serious immediate impact would be from the low atmospheric pressure that is nearly a vacuum compared to Earth," Chris Webster from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Curiosity rover roaming Mars, said in an email.
And what would happen to your insides?
"Within minutes the skin and organs would rupture, outgas, and produce a quick, painful death," Webster says.
Beyond the low-pressure atmosphere, there are many other environmental factors that make Mars a terrible place for humans, at least without protection.
"Any humans on Mars would have to contend with the lack of oxygen — only about 0.1% compared to Earth's 20% — the very cold surface temperatures, the ubiquitous and irritating dust, the intense UV radiation, surface chemicals, and oxidants," Webster said. "And all this before they started looking for food and water!"
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NOW WATCH: Here's the evidence that convinced NASA water flows on Mars
The film adaptation of Andy Weir's sci-fi novel "The Martian" opens everywhere on Friday, October 2, and it has amassed a huge fan following — partly thanks to the book's scientific accuracy and realism.
But does the story's dedication hold up under scrutiny from real scientists and astronauts?
We've rounded up some of the best critiques of "The Martian" from space experts who've seen the movie. The reception so far has been positive, but some of the movie's most discerning critics couldn't help but point out a few glaring errors.
Keep scrolling to see what they had to say.
Warning: Spoilers ahead if you haven't read the book "The Martian."
As NASA's planetary science director, Jim Green knows a thing or two about Mars. So director Ridley Scott recruited him as a consultant for the movie adaptation.
Green told Tech Insider that he spent hours talking with Scott about Mars in the beginning stages of the movie's production. Green answered questions, and he sent Scott mockups of NASA's plans for a real Mars mission tentatively slated for the 2030s.
All that research and NASA consultation really comes through in the movie.
"It's a visually stunning movie that doesn't look much different than the real versions," Green told Tech Insider.
"There’s a lot of NASA in there, which they captured quite nicely," astronaut Michael Barratt said during an appearance on KING-TV’s "New Day Northwest" program.
Leroy Chiao, former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, pointed out a more specific example in an op-ed for Space.com:
The movie portrays the operational side of things pretty well. Astronauts and NASA think through every scenario as thoroughly as possible, and plan for every reasonable contingency. Still, we sometimes get surprised. In those cases, it is up to individual and collective creativity to solve the problem and try for a good outcome. The movie holds up on this account.
Astronaut Clayton Anderson told Quartz something similar:
Rather for me, the highlight was the film’s refreshing and inspiring depiction of NASA. I’m not talking about physical depictions mind you (the Vertical Assembly Building does not reside at the Johnson Space Center) but instead the film’s sense of an ever-present drive on the part of NASA employees to pull together to win the day, even in the midst of seemingly insurmountable odds. Just as I witnessed so often throughout my own 30-year NASA career, a team of ordinary, caring people with little regard to their personal needs put in just a little bit extra, to do something extraordinary.
"The big windstorm on Mars—that's just not going to happen," Fred Calef, a geologist and geospatial information scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Smithsonian Magazine. "Even hurricane-force wind on Mars is going to feel like having paper balls thrown at you."
NOW WATCH: 4 ways to stay awake without caffeine
Spoiler Warning: This video mentions details from the film & novel!
In "The Martian", Matt Damon plays astronaut and botanist Mark Watney, who is abandoned on Mars and has to figure scientific ways to survive the harsh Martian climate until he can be rescued. Watney devises ways to grow food, generate power and heat and make repairs using the few supplies he has left and his knowledge of science.
Produced by Rob Ludacer
Original Reporting by Kelly Dickerson.
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Movie goers across the country will get the chance to see Matt Damon trek across "Mars" on Friday, Oct. 2 when the highly-anticipated film "The Martian" premiers in theaters nationwide.
Unfortunately, Damon is not actually on Mars (obviously). Instead, that iconic red-stained sand and those rocky plateaus are just a mock-up.
But we've got the real thing.
Since 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has been orbiting Mars snapping pictures of the surface with its HiRISE camera. Here's a collection of some of the most incredible images the camera has taken over the years.
The HiRISE images shown here have false coloring that highlights distinct Martian features, like sand dunes shown in the image to the right. The false-coloring helps scientists see how the grooves and troughs of these features change over time.
DON'T MISS: 9 tripped-out sci-fi technologies in 'The Martian' that NASA really uses
Director Ridley Scott's highly-anticipated movie "The Martian" is now open in theaters everywhere.
Whether you're curious about about the film or are emerging bleary-eyed from a showing with a bunch of questions, you've come to the right place.
Tech Insider has seen and reviewed the movie, interviewed scientific experts, and chatted with filmmakers.
Below is every story we've published about "The Martian" in one handy place. Keep checking back — we'll be adding more articles soon.
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NOW WATCH: 9 ways Matt Damon sciences the s--- out of Mars in 'The Martian'
Scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed a rover robot that might one day explore the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa. BLUIE explored methane seeps while "driving" under ice on frozen lakes within the Arctic region of Alaska.
Produced by Kevin Reilly. Video courtesy of NASA.
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I have seen the film adaptation of Andy Weir's best-selling novel "The Martian," and I can deliver my review in one sentence with zero spoilers: This is the best space sci-fi movie made within my lifetime. (A necessary caveat because nothing can touch the 1970s and 1980s "Star Wars" in my mind.)
It's not just better than recent space sci-fi movies like "Interstellar,""Gravity," and the "Star Trek" reboots — it completely blows them out of the water. "The Martian" is on a whole other level, and it has the potential to revolutionize the sci-fi genre.
That's a bold statement, so hear me out — but first, here's a quick, spoiler-free plot summary.
"The Martian," directed by Ridley Scott, is a gritty survivalist tale that follows the story of astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon). Watney gets stranded on Mars when his crew is forced to leave him for dead during a major dust storm. When he wakes up, all he has is a space habitat designed to last for only 30 days and no way to contact anyone on Earth.
The next crew isn't coming to Mars for another four years, but Watney is determined to survive until they arrive.
On the surface, "The Martian" may sound a little like "Interstellar" 2.0: a big budget sci-fi movie where Matt Damon gets stranded in space. We're all aware of the symmetry.
"Why yes, Matt Damon did play a stranded astronaut in Interstellar," Weir tweeted in June. "Thank you, thousands of people, for pointing that out over and over."
"To a nerd like me, working out all the math and physics for Mark's problems and solutions was fun," Weir wrote in a Q&A at the end of the book. "The more I worked on it, the more I realized I had accidentally spent my life researching for this story."
And the film adaptation kept most of that intact.
Almost every scene sticks to hard science. Like what can happen when you mess with rocket fuel:
And when your habitat airlock breaks due to a completely plausible design flaw:
NASA even got in on the film. While the government agency can't support a private enterprise, NASA experts consulted on the movie, and production has worked very closely with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab officials, Weir said.
NASA also gave permission for the film to use the copyrighted — and coveted — NASA logo on its costumes, as you can see in these screenshots from the trailer:
It's easy to dive in too deep when it comes to the science of space travel. A lot of it is, after all, rocket science.
But the movie found a way to dip its toes in without drowning anyone. It describes how you can make water out of hydrazine rocket fuel without getting into the nitty-gritty chemistry. It references complicated rocket maneuvers, but smartly relies on visuals to explain the crux of them.
And while it's devoted to scientific realism, the movie does exercise its fiction liberty where it should. For example, communication between Earth and Mars in reality would be on a 20-minute time lag. "The Martian" largely — and wisely — ignores this fact to avoid seemingly choppy editing and a movie that'd last as long as a Mars mission itself.
Somehow, "The Martian" strikes a perfect balance between fact and fantasy.
The movie comes out on Oct. 2.
You can watch the first trailer here:
In the highly-anticipate sci-fi drama "The Martian"— premiering in theaters nationwide Friday — Matt Damon plays Mark Watney — a NASA astronaut who is marooned on Mars.
Watney is a crew member on the Ares 3 mission that touches down and sets up camp on a region of Mars called Acidalia Planitia.
Though Acidalia Planitia is flat compared with its surroundings, the terrain is more geologically diverse than the film depicts.
In fact, it would be too hazardous, NASA says, for Watney to drive around on it as much as he does in "The Martian."
The film is based on the best-selling novel by Andy Weir, who recently gave NASA the exact coordinate of his hero's location and requested they take a picture of the real thing. NASA obliged.
Here's the exact spot — at the very center of this photo — of the real Ares 3 landing site in Acidalia Planitia on Mars: 
Acidalia Planitia is a relatively flat region on Mars, located in the northern hemisphere and just north of one of the largest canyons in the entire solar system, Valles Marineris:
Changing sand ripples — like the ones shown below — indicate that Acidalia Planitia can be a windy place at certain times of the year:
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These amazing photos were taken by the $40 million HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting Mars since 2006. The camera has taken numerous photos that reveal the presence of giant sand dunes, towering dust devils, and monster canyons on Mars that attest to this planet's astounding geological diversity.
The sand dunes in Acidalia Planitia are often found at the bottoms of eroded crater, like the ones shown below:
But not all of the craters are eroded. Here's a rather large, young crater in the region, that HiRISE snapped in exquisite detail, shown below.
These photos from HiRISE have false coloring to highlight distinct Martian features, like the ejected materials in this crater. To our human eyes, this crater would look more grayish-red than blue:
Now that you know more about the home-base of "The Martian," check out the trailer below, or on YouTube:
DON'T MISS: Epically awesome photos of Mars
SEE ALSO: Jaw-dropping images give us a first glimpse of Mars' liquid water
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: 9 ways Matt Damon sciences the s--- out of Mars in 'The Martian'
Hollywood director Ridley Scott's latest sci-fi film "The Martian" premiers in theaters nationwide this Friday, October 2.
The premise of the film, which is based on the novel by Andy Weir, is simple: Maroon Matt Damon on Mars and see if he survives.
Mars is an extremely inhospitable place, which makes survival trickier than if Damon's character — Mark Watney — were simply left on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific.
It also makes for an entirely novel viewing experience.
Some of the most remarkable scenes in the film reveal features on Mars that you simply cannot imagine in the book.
However, you have to know where to look in order to spot them! Here are some tips of what to look for and how.
Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos. But these moons don't light up the Martian night sky the way our moon illuminates Earth's — these moons are extremely tiny, and do not reflect enough sunlight to brighten Mars at night. Phobos, which is the larger of the two moons and orbits closer to the planet is about 6.5 miles across. Deimos is less than 4 miles across.
There are several scenes in the "The Martian" where you can spot one of these tiny lopsided moons in the background. Especially the wide-angled shots when Watney is trekking across the Martian surface at night.
You'll see a good number of these dust tornadoes in the film. Some are easier to spot than others.
These beautiful phenomena are real and not just an aesthetically appealing addition for moviegoers. The HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is flying in orbit around Mars right now, has taken multiple photos of these whirling dust devils.
One of these photos, shown above, shows a tornado that is 450 feet wide and 12.5 miles tall.
Mars has giant sand dunes. But that's not what we're focusing on here.
If you look closer at the above photo, you can just make out patterns of ripples in the sand that are marching up the face of the giant central dune. These ripples are made by the same phenomenon that makes similar sand ripples here on Earth: wind.
Planetary scientists use the HiRISE camera to snap the same regions on Mars at different times of the year to see how ripples like these change over time. They can then use that information to determine the direction, speed, and strength of winds on Mars.
If you remember to notice the alien ground upon which Mark Watney walks in the film "The Martian," then you'll get a glimpse of the ripply sand in certain scenes.
Now that you have some real phenomena to watch out for in this sci-fi drama, check out a trailer for the film below:
UP NEXT: Epically awesome photos of Mars
DON'T MISS: Jaw-dropping images give us a first glimpse of Mars' liquid water
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NOW WATCH: 9 ways Matt Damon sciences the s--- out of Mars in 'The Martian'
I really loved "The Martian," a survivalist thriller about an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars. I loved it so much that I called it the best space sci-fi movie of my time.
But that warm, satisfied feeling disappeared the second the credits started to roll.
It's easy to see why the film adaptation has gotten so much praise and adoration from the science and space community. My own glowing review largely stemmed from the story's attention to scientific detail and realism, which is often missing from science fiction films. All the NASA technology you read about in the book or see in the film adaptation is based on existing or future prototypes of real thing.
Best of all, "The Martian" portrays what a real mission to Mars might look like. But by the end of the movie a horrible, sinking feeling replaced my enthusiasm: I remembered NASA only has a skeleton of a real Mars program in place and practically no funding to make it a reality.
It may not seem that way. NASA aggressively reminds us that it's going to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. And of course it's hooking into all the hype around "The Martian" to get people excited about Mars. Case in point:
#TheMartian movie highlights isolation and confinement. See how we simulate this on Earth for our #JourneyToMarshttps://t.co/8ADg302rog
— NASA (@NASA) October 1, 2015
NASA astronaut & #TheMartian movie actress hope to inspire the next generation of astronauts on our #JourneyToMarshttps://t.co/T6T1pGaTKr
— NASA (@NASA) October 1, 2015#TheMartian movie sends humans to Mars, see how @Space_Station research is helping us on our real #JourneyToMarshttps://t.co/COhkGkXEbw
— NASA (@NASA) September 30, 2015And of course there's the coincidental timing of NASA's "big announcement" this week that water flows on Mars:
.@NASA Good news for mankind. GREAT news for Watney. #MarsAnnouncement#TheMartianpic.twitter.com/HnY2gZyf1a
— The Martian Movie (@MartianMovie) September 28, 2015NASA has already made it clear that the timing of the Mars discovery and release of "The Martian"was not orchestrated, but the space agency's public relations team would be crazy not to take advantage of the coincidence.
While there's certainly a lot of hype around NASA's Mars program, the organization really is working toward getting us there. The trouble is there's too much standing in the way that NASA has no control over.
One of the biggest problems is NASA's pathetic budget. The space agency had a budget nearly five times greater than it is today during the Apollo program and has faced cut after cut ever since. Today around $300 million of NASA's total $18 billion budget is allocated toward Mars exploration program — but only for scientific research by robots.
NASA is building a giant rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) to send heavy equipment, people, and supplies into space, but that program is likely to go over budget. Even when finished, SLS will need a big upgrade before it's powerful enough to send any spacecraft to Mars.
There's also the Orion space capsule, which is designed to eventually ferry astronauts to Mars. Right now, however, the model is only capable of comfortably seating a six-person crew for a few weeks. It'll take up to eight months to reach Mars, so Orion will need a deep-space add-on before it's ready for a real Mars mission.
NASA also hasn't worked out how to safely land Orion there. Mars has an almost non-existent atmosphere, which makes slowing down and gently landing complicated.
All of those hardware upgrades and research are going to cost money. A lot of money. A deadline of the 2030s seems a little tight with a flat-lined budget.
Interestingly, the Planetary Society just released a report called Humans Orbiting Mars that outlines a way to hit NASA's lofty goals without cranking up government funding.
The society's plan proposes sending humans to orbit Mars in 2033, then landing on the surface before the end of the decade. But there's a huge catch: This proposal only fits NASA's budget if the organization abandons its leading role in the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS annually eats up billions of dollars in NASA's budget. (Mars aside, some scientists and policy experts say the return we get from the ISS is not enough to justify the huge price tag.)
Without a huge budget increase, NASA can't pay for its Mars program without cannibalizing other efforts.
"The issue is whether the next president provides the start-up funding for the next pieces of hardware that are required to do this," space policy expert John Logsdon told the Washington Post. "And at what point do we stop spending $3 billion a year on the space station."
There's hope that commercial spaceflight companies — and their own independent funding — could make a mission to Mars happen sooner. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private rocket company SpaceX, for example, is designing rockets and spaceships capable of sending people to Mars. Musk's progress looks promising so far, but it's still too early to tell.
If private companies can't get us there, then perhaps hype around "The Martian" and NASA's big water-on-Mars announcement will help us get there. "Follow the water" is generally a good strategy in searching for alien life, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life is a pretty compelling reason to send a mission to Mars (although there are far better prospects farther out in the solar system).
Yet would a giant spike in public interest be enough to convince Congress to raise NASA's budget? And could NASA sustain that excitement for a quarter of a century or longer, which is the time it'd take to develop, build, launch, and operate a Mars program? This seems unlikely.
Or maybe NASA is simply aiming too high, and it should first set up a moon base. This could better prepare the space agency for operating long-duration missions while bringing down the future cost of getting humans to Mars. Others argue there are far more interesting worlds in the solar system to explore — places much more likely to harbor life — and we should focus NASA's resources on those.
As for me? There's still something about sending humans to Mars that I can't let go of. I think we should try our hardest to send people there within my lifetime — if only to know who will utter the first words on Mars, and what they will be.
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NOW WATCH: 9 ways Matt Damon sciences the s--- out of Mars in 'The Martian'
In "The Martian," the film based on Andy Weir's bestselling novel that hit theaters Friday, Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars.
From the extreme cold to the deadly radiation, there are many traits about Mars that make it inhospitable.
Here are some of the main obstacles to surviving — and colonizing — the fourth rock from the sun.
CHECK OUT: 9 tripped-out sci-fi technologies in 'The Martian' that NASA really uses
SEE ALSO: NASA’s top planetary scientist told us what he thinks of the science in 'The Martian'
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Spoiler alert if you haven't read "The Martian."
As Elton John once said, it's lonely out in space.
And it's even lonelier being stranded on a planet millions of miles from Earth, without communication, adequate food, or much hope of getting back home. That's the grim prospect Matt Damon's character faces in "The Martian," the upcoming film based on the novel by Andy Weir.
Damon plays NASA astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist on a fictional mission to Mars. Watney gets stranded on the Red Planet when a massive dust storm gravely injures him and forces his crewmates to escape, leaving him for dead. But Watney survives, and faces the daunting task of figuring out how to stay alive on an alien wasteland until he can be rescued.
Watney's technical prowess enables him to tackle the practical problems of getting enough water, oxygen, and food.
But perhaps the greatest hurdle he faces is psychological.
We talked to a NASA psychologist to find out if someone stranded on Mars could really make it without losing his or her mind.
"People have been able to keep it together mentally before" under extreme circumstances, such as being prisoners of war, Al Holland, a senior operational psychologist at NASA, told Business Insider. "We know that humans can be very resilient. One thing humans do very well is adapt."
One thing that's important for staying sane on journeys to space is real-time communication, which helps astronauts feel connected to friends and family. Thankfully for most of today's astronauts — including NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who's spending a year on the International Space Station — communication is delayed by only a fraction of a second.
But on Mars, there would be a lag of about 20 minutes each way, which means a single exchange would take 40 minutes. In "The Martian," Watney faces the added difficulty of having to communicate with NASA using the camera on an old rover, which NASA can only use by pointing at letters and spelling out words. Talk about frustrating.
In the movie and book, Watney copes with the prospect of almost certain death using humor. At one point in the film when he's figuring out how he's going to survive, he says, "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this."
A sense of humor is a huge asset for anyone, particularly for an astronaut, because it allows him or her to remain positive. Studies have shown that people use humor to cope with everything from losing their vision to having cancer.
Holland says it's also completely healthy for someone who is completely isolated to start having relationships with inanimate objects (think Wilson the volleyball in the film "Cast Away"). As for Watney, he develops a kind of relationship with the camera he uses to log his captivity on Mars.
Keeping focused on actively doing things is also important for avoiding depression like the kind that Mark Watney might have experienced (psychologists call this behavioral activation). For example, people who are kept in solitary confinement will do things like construct a house in their mind, brick by brick, Holland says. In Watney's case, he throws himself into solving each problem that presents itself on Mars, MacGuiver-style.
But when it comes to training astronauts in the real world, NASA prepares them to work in teams, not on their own. "It would be a very rare situation to have somebody left by themselves," says Holland, but "we also plan for the worst-case scenarios."
Although NASA trains its astronauts to deal with solitude, American astronauts still felt isolated when they flew to the Russian space station Mir in the 1990s, according to Holland. The predominant language was Russian, and communication with family on Earth wasn't reliable.
Astronauts have different strategies for keeping busy in space. Some read, some make things, and others focus more on their work. But astronauts going to Mars will likely have to be even more independent, more focused, and more resilient than those of today are.
The Martian premiers on Oct. 2.
CHECK OUT: Stunning images reveal SpaceX's revolutionary approach to landing on Mars
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NOW WATCH: Matt Damon is left to die on Mars in first trailer for ‘The Martian’
Mars is the solar system’s it planet, what with breakthrough reports of Martian water and a blockbuster movie about a Red Planet castaway soon to hit theaters. But Mars is hard—really, really hard. And while sending humans there is not just a grand dream but an achievable o
ne, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about just how deadly a place it could be. Here are a few of the things that make living on—and merely getting to—Mars so risky.
SEE ALSO: Epically awesome photos of Mars
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NOW WATCH: 9 ways Matt Damon sciences the s--- out of Mars in 'The Martian'
“The Martian” is the latest blockbuster to use Jordan’s Wadi Rum region as a stand-in for Mars.
Because of the barren landscape and the reddish hue of the terrain, Mars movies like “Red Planet” and “The Last Days on Mars” were shot there.
The Mars backdrops you see in “The Martian” actually exist in southern Jordan.
Director Ridley Scott called Wadi Rum “The Eighth Wonder of the World.”
Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss
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Billionaire Elon Musk has a really compelling reason to ramp up NASA's budget: We need to become a multi-planet species to ensure the survival of the human race, and we need NASA's help to do it.
There's a story Musk likes to tell about the time he went surfing on the NASA website looking for a timeline for when NASA would be going to Mars.
He didn't find a date, so now he's planning on doing it himself using his rocket company SpaceX, and hope that it inspires people enough that the government will bump up NASA's budget.
Then we'll have a decent shot at setting up a permanent Mars colony and making humans a multi-planet species.
Blogger Tim Urban sat down with Musk for an in-depth article on SpaceX and Mars called "How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars," and asked him about NASA's budget:
Musk believed — and still believes — that around 0.25% of US GDP, or about 1% of the budget, should be dedicated to space. He makes it clear that he’s not suggesting a return to the 4%-of-the-budget days of the 60s — just an increase from the less-than-0.5% level it’s at today. "For 1%," he says, "we can buy life insurance."
By "life insurance," Musk means establishing a thriving human colony on another planet before a catastrophic disaster hits the Earth and wipes out the human race, like the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. Earth has already experienced five mass extinction events, so some argue it's only a matter of time before another disaster strikes.
That means we need a back up copy of the human race, and according to Musk, that's a plenty compelling reason to double NASA's budget.
It doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon, though. The problem is that Congress keeps failing to approve President Obama's budget requests, as NASA administrator Charles Bolden explains in an August op-ed for Wired.
"Since 2010, the President has received approximately $1 billion less than he requested for NASA’s Commercial Crew initiative," Bolden writes. "During this time we’ve sent $1 billion to Russia."
If history had gone differently and NASA was allowed to ride the momentum it built up during the incredible Apollo moon missions in the 60s and 70s, some experts argue that humans would have set foot on Mars long ago. We'd have a colony there already, or at least we'd be regularly sending manned missions to explore it.
Instead, NASA suffered its first monster round of budget cuts in the 70s; The budget peaked in the 60s at about 4.4% of the federal budget, but by the end of the 70s it was well below 1%. And in the decade after we landed on the moon, NASA cut its in-house staff by a third.
Such a dramatic budget cut forced NASA to scale back its grandiose plans for space exploration, including its Mars missions, and instead it put a more modest space shuttle program in place.
The budget cuts weren't over though. NASA was forced to shut the doors on its space shuttle program in 2011. Right now the budget is hovering just under 0.5% of the federal budget.
Maybe we'll see how much interest Musk and SpaceX can drum up if they pull off a Mars landing. If that happens, maybe we'll get Congress on board to give NASA a serious shot at Mars.
We're expecting Musk to unveil his plans for a giant Mars spacecraft that can seat 100 people sometime this year.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield came to mainstream fame a couple of years ago with his YouTube videos from space and wide social media presence with some 1.4 million Twitter followers. Now retired, Hadfield is the best-selling author of "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth."
When he stopped by our office to promote his book, we asked Hadfield about colonizing Mars and what our next space endeavor should be.
Produced by Christine Nguyen and Will Wei. Additional camera by Alex Kuzoian.
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Famous astrophysicist and host of StarTalk Radio Neil deGrasse Tyson was surprisingly sassy in his review of the sci-fi epic "The Martian."
"The Martian" follows the story of astronaut Mark Watney who must rely on science to survive after he gets stranded on Mars. NASA then pulls out all the stops to get him back to Earth alive.
Most scientists have praised "The Martian" for its attempt at scientific accuracy and realism.
Tyson took the opposite approach. In his first tweet about the movie, he pointed out a brilliant reason why we know "The Martian" is science fiction and not a true story:
Evidence that the @MartianMovie is fantasy: All who make important decisions are scientifically literate.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 2, 2015Tyson's second tweet was another zinger:
Evidence that the @MartianMovie is fantasy: The USA & China cooperate with one another in Space.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 2, 2015In 2011, Congress actually expressly forbid NASA from working with any Chinese citizen or anyone affiliated with the state. It cited alleged security concerns as the reason. It will take a big policy shift to change that sentiment.
Tyson also tweeted out a few nods to the movie's attention to scientific accuracy:
The @MartianMovie— where you learn all the ways that being Scientifically Literate can save your life.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 2, 2015
In the @MartianMovie, they got crucial science right, while enhancing the story by fictionalizing the science that remained.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 2, 2015But it's really those first two tweets that make Tyson's reaction to "The Martian" priceless – his quibbles aren't with the scientific accuracy of the movie (unlike some others he's reviewed on Twitter.)
"The Martian" is out in theaters right now.
The strongest evidence we have yet for liquid water on Mars is most closely related to one common Martian feature, a team of scientists recently reported in the journal Nature Geosciences.
That feature, called recurring slope linae— Latin for "line"— refers to long, dark flows that point downhill and, more importantly, contain salts that harbor crystals of liquid water.
One of the instruments the team used for their recent discovery was the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has taken photos of all the different locations on Mars where recurring slope linae appear, and consequently, where liquid water recently flowed on the Martian surface.
Because you need relatively warm temperatures for liquid water, all of these places are near the Martian equator. Here's where scientists think there is liquid water on Mars:
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