Mark Watney

Mark Watney is an astronaut and the main protagonist of the 2011 Andy Weir science fiction novel The Martian and its 2015 film adaptation of the same name, where he was portrayed by Matt Damon.

Watney is an astronaut and the botanist of the Ares III mission to Mars when a storm strikes and the crew thinks he is dead. They then flee Mars to escape the storm and when Watney wakes up, he realizes that he is alone on the desolate red planet 50 million miles away from home and without any way to contact Earth. Watney is forced to use his botany skills to farm crops on Mars until the Ares IV mission arrives in four years.

Biography
In 2035, the crew of the Ares III manned mission to Mars is exploring the Acidalia Planitia on Martian solar day (sol) 18 of their 31-sol expedition. A dust storm forces them to return to their orbiting vessel Hermes. During the evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is struck by debris and lost in the storm; the last telemetry from his suit indicates no life signs. With the remaining crew in peril, mission commander Melissa Lewis gives the order to launch without him. Watney awakens after the storm and makes his way to the "Hab", the crew's Martian living quarters. He removes a piece of antenna from his stomach and suit's biomonitor, which caused the erroneous life-sign readings, and begins a video diary. He realizes that his only chance of rescue is the arrival of the Ares IV crew at the Schiaparelli crater, 3,200 kilometers away, in four years. Calculating that he has enough food to last only 300 sols (roughly 309 days), Watney, a botanist, improvises a farm with Martian soil fertilized with vacuum-packed toilet waste, water produced by extracting hydrogen from leftover rocket fuel then oxidized by burning, and potatoes saved for a Thanksgiving meal. He begins to modify the only functional rover to make long journeys across Mars. Reviewing satellite photos of Mars, mission director Vincent Kapoor and satellite planner Mindy Park realize Watney has survived. Despite the objections of Hermes flight director Mitch Henderson, NASA director Teddy Sanders decides not to inform the Ares III crew, believing it would distract them from their mission. Watney takes the rover to retrieve the Pathfinder probe, which fell silent in 1997. Using the lander's camera, he establishes rudimentary communication with the JPL team. NASA instructs Watney to modify the rover to link with Pathfinder so they can communicate via text. Watney is angry that the crew has not been told of his survival and Sanders authorizes Henderson to inform them. Henderson and JPL director Bruce Ng formulate a plan to send a space probe to Mars and resupply Watney with enough food to survive until Ares IV's arrival. When the Hab airlock explosively decompresses, destroying Watney's crop, Sanders orders the team to accelerate the supply mission by skipping safety inspections. The supply probe explodes after liftoff. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) offers NASA the Taiyang Shen, a classified booster that can carry a payload to Mars. Meanwhile, JPL astrodynamicist Rich Purnell determines a trajectory to send Hermes back to Mars more quickly, using the Chinese booster to instead resupply it for an additional eighteen months. Sanders rejects the plan, refusing to risk the crew, but Henderson surreptitiously sends the details to Hermes. Lewis and her crew vote unanimously to execute the plan, and NASA – powerless to stop them – proceeds with the resupply as Hermes flies by Earth, using its gravity to slingshot them back to Mars. After 461 sols, Watney begins the 90-sol journey to Schiaparelli crater, where the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) for the Ares IV mission previously landed. To rendezvous with Hermes' fly-by, Watney makes drastic modifications to reduce its mass, removing equipment including the windows, nose cone, and exterior panels. With Watney on board the gutted MAV, the Hermes crew launches it remotely, but not at the planned speed and distance. Hermes uses its maneuvering thrusters to change course and explosive decompression of its own internal atmosphere to adjust its speed. Lewis uses a Manned Maneuvering Unit, propelled by nitrogen gas, to approach Watney's vessel, but cannot reach him. Watney pierces the glove of his pressure suit and uses the escaping air as a miniature thruster to reach Lewis. The crew is reunited as crowds around the world cheer. After returning to Earth, Watney begins a new life as a survival instructor for new astronaut candidates. Years later, on the occasion of the Ares V mission launch, those involved in Watney's rescue have returned to their lives or begun new lives.

Trivia

 * Mark Watney's name is a play on words of the word botany, which is his specialty.