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BE A MARTIAN! Mars needs YOU! In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers . . . but most of all YOU! Join us on the Journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day.

The Martian was one of the biggest hits of 2015, and was nominated for tons of year-end awards. But being as it's set in space and in the near future, we thought it best to bring back Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson to help us separate this movie's sins from its wins.

In Capital (volume 3), Karl Marx observed: “In London . . . they can do nothing better with the excrement produced by 4 1/2 million people than pollute the Thames with it, at monstrous expense”. That would not have happened if Matt Damon had been around. Marx was railing against the loss of nutrients from the soil caused by contemporary (and modern) sewage systems. In Ridley Scott’s new 3D blockbuster, The Martian, Damon is inadvertently left behind on Mars by his NASA crew mates and is obliged to survive until help comes. As is so often the way, inspiration strikes...

FReepers, I can't recommend this one enough. This book is phenomenal. Here's an effort at a short summary: In the near future, an astronaut is presumed dead and left behind on Mars during a dust storm. Turns out he pulled through and has to figure out how to survive. NASA has several missions planned over the coming years so he meticulously plans and executes his survival with the hopes that the future missions take place. What struck me was that he didn't feel sorry for himself. He conducted himself as a man and even had contempt for fate. He wasn't...

Self-published in 2012 and lauded for its scientific accuracy, The Martian follows the exploits of astronaut Marc Watney (played by Matt Damon in the upcoming film) as he struggles to stay alive on Mars.... The 20 Century Fox film adaptation is directed by Ridley Scott (of Alien and Blackhawk Down fame) and promises to have a ‘successful failure’ vibe in the tradition of Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. Heck, reading The Martian, we simply love how it breaks the convention advocated at innumerable writing workshops that exposition is somehow always bad. Engineering and science geeks want to peek under the hood,...