Astronaut Mark Watney is left alone on Mars when an explosion forces his crewmates to abandon the planet. To survive, the Martian of Ridley Scott’s new film must push NASA’s innovate-and-improvise philosophy further than ever before. Or as he puts it, “In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.”

At New Scientist, we have a long history of using expletives to convey our love of science – so we can only applaud Watney’s never-say-die spirit and almost genius use of science to solve problems. Here, as a spoiler-lite companion to enjoying The Martian, we offer our own thoughts on the science of survival on Mars.

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