The Martian-week 2

•The purpose of Sirius4?

To find Pathfinder so that Mark can get the radio and thus contact Earth.

• Mark is now on his path to find the Pathfinder, and of course, he finds it. (Duh!) So, the questions for today are: why is navigation tricky? And how does he overcome this issue?

In chapter 9, Mark explains that the Hab’s nav beacon only reaches 40 km so it’s useless for him to out there.

When he found the computer has detailed maps, he was trying to navigate by landmarks. However, he can’t find any god damned landmarks at all.

Then he considered making a compass. But the problem is Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field.

Finally, Mark decided to navigate by Phobos. And it works!

• Communication is now set up. But there's a slight problem. At first, all communications are done through a camera, but why can’t Mark use the alphabet to "receive" messages but have to resort to a seemingly more complex system?

Twenty-six letters plus Mark’s question card would be twenty-seven cards around the lander. Thus he has to use ASCII.

• Mitch is going to tell the crew the news that Mark is still alive. If you haven't read ahead, what do you think their reactions will be?

They must be excited and astonished that Mark is still alive! They will probably consider about how could Mark escaped from death. But the thing they concern about most is how to rescue Mark from Mars.

• Chapter 12 takes us back to the time before everything went south, both for Mark and the remaining crew members. What do think about Lewis, the Commander, more specifically, her heroism and, later, deep remorse?

Lewis is a very responsible commander. She is a brave and determined woman. when I first found out she is willing to risk her own life for her crew mate, I thought it’s reasonless. But when she kept blaming herself just because she is the commander even if it’s not her mistake at all, I understand she is more than a responsible person. What’s more, I believe she has tried her best to seek for Mark in that situation. I have to say I admire people like Lewis very much!