A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Mission to Mars

Date Viewed: 3/6/00

Details:

Gary Sinese

Tim Robbins

Don Cheadle

Jerry O'Connell

Connie Nelson

Director: Brian De Palma

Score: 0

The Review: A common complaint about science fiction movies is their lack of characterization; this certainly cannot be said about Mission to Mars. This movie wallows in characterization. But there's not a whole lot else.

It's 2020 -- how many reasonable Earth to Mars transfer orbits are there in that era? The first mission to Mars encounters some unusual problems, causing a rescue mission to be mounted. This pastiche is an occasionally plodding combination of directed panspermia with Richard Hoagland's ("The Face on Mars") photographic interpretations. Some of the better special effects are reminiscent of HBO's special "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries; some of the worst are reminiscent of Close Encounters.

The design of the intraorbital transfer vehicle, the landing descent and ascent stages, and the Mars settlement components are all fairly clearly drawn from several recent proposals to NASA, and are believable. So let me only worry about a few scientific boners.

First, when you're staring at a ball-and-stick molecular visualization of a DNA strand, even if you are a brilliant molecular biologist, it's highly unlikely you'll say "notice the two missing chromosomes." If you were very familiar with the nucleotide sequence, you might say "notice the two missing terminal base pairs." On the other hand, one might wonder what is so famous about this particular sequence that its identity is known to your average Mars astronaut? But then, perhaps it is an obviously incomplete start or stop codon.

Second, I suspect that the current (pre-terraformed) atmospheric pressure at the surface of Mars would cause a loosely constructed -- even if air-tight -- plastic bubble to swell to noticeable distention, not flop in the "wind," and probably leak, under internal normal Earth pressures near 14.7 psi.

And third, the orbital mechanics seem a little suspect, both macro and micro. Large first... A Hohmann minimum energy transfer orbit between Earth and Mars takes about 8-1/2 months for transit, not six months. And the timing for mission one, mission two, and the return is compressed in time such that at least two of the trips cannot be Hohmann transfers, so the craft design is inappropriate. Now for the small... The impulse to transfer into Mars orbit is about 3.2 km/sec, which is much more than can be accomplished by backpack jets. Don't take my word for all this; check out the Mars Academy site for complete details and a fascinating course in orbital mechanics.

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