The Martian

by Andy Weir

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Student Question

In The Martian, what happened to Iris?

Quick answer:

In "The Martian," the Iris probe, intended to deliver essential food supplies to Watney on Mars, fails catastrophically. The failure occurs because NASA administrator Teddy neglects to conduct necessary pre-launch inspections. As a result, protein cubes onboard liquefy, causing an imbalance that leads to the probe's destruction. Ground control loses the signal, and debris falls from the sky, marking the launch as a total disaster.

Expert Answers

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Iris is the name of a probe that's being sent by NASA to Mars to provide Watney with some much-needed food supplies. This is an acutely urgent necessity now that the potato farm is dead. Even so, it's calculated that the probe will still take over 400 days to reach its destination. That's presuming, of course, that Iris is successfully launched, which, unfortunately, it isn't.

This is largely because the NASA administrator, Teddy, chooses not to carry out the necessary inspections prior to the probe's launch. The results of such negligence are catastrophic. The protein cubes on board the probe liquefy and the shifting of the liquid to one side of the probe throws it off balance. At ground control, the signal has been lost, and to make matters worse, debris can be seen falling from the sky. The launch of Iris has been a complete, unmitigated disaster.

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