Chapter 3 LOG ENTRY: SOL 25 (Dec. 1, 2035) Remember those old math questions you had in Algebra class? Where water is entering a container at a certain rate and leaving at a different rate and you need to figure out when it’ll be empty? Well, that concept is critical to the “Mark Watney doesn’t die” project I’m working on.  I need to create calories. And I need enough to last four years. I figure if I don’t get rescued…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 22 (Nov. 28, 2035) Wow. Things really came along.  I got all the sand in and ready to go. 2/3 of the base is now dirt. And today I executed my first dirt-doubling. It’s been a week, and the former Martian soil was rich and lovely. Two more doublings and I will have covered the whole field.  All that work was great for my morale. It gave me something to do. But after things settled down a…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 16 (Nov. 22, 2035) One complication I hadn’t thought of: Water.  Turns out being on the surface of Mars for a few million years eliminates all the water in the soil. My master’s degree in botany makes me pretty sure plants need wet dirt to grow in. Not to mention the bacteria that has to live in it first.  Fortunately, I have water. But not as much as I want. To be viable, soil needs 40 liters…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 15 (Nov. 21, 2035) Ugh! This is backbreaking work!  I spent 12 hours today on EVAs to bring dirt in to the Hab. I only managed to cover a small corner of the base, maybe 5 square meters. At this rate it’ll take me weeks to get all the soil in. But hey, time is one thing I’ve got.  The first few EVAs were pretty inefficient; me filling small containers and bringing them in through the airlock.…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 14 (Nov. 20, 2035) I got my undergrad degree at the University of Chicago. Half the people who studied botany were hippies who thought they could return to some natural world system. Somehow feeding 7 billion people through pure gathering. They spent most of their time working out better ways to grow pot. I didn’t like them. I’ve always been in it for the science, not for any New World Order bullshit.  When they made compost heaps…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 11 (Nov. 17, 2035) I wonder how the Cubs are doing.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 10 (Nov. 16, 2035) Well, I’ve done three EVAs and haven’t found any hint of the communication dish.  I dug out one of the rovers and had a good drive around, but after days of wandering I think it’s time to give up. The storm probably blew the dish far away and then erased any drag-marks or scuffs that might have led to a trail. Probably buried it, too.  I spent most of today out at what’s…

Chapter 2  LOG ENTRY: SOL 7 (Nov. 13, 2035) Ok, I’ve had a good night’s sleep, and things don’t seem as hopeless as they did yesterday.  Today I took stock of supplies, and did a quick EVA to check up on the external equipment. Here’s my situation:  The surface mission was supposed to be 31 days. For redundancy, the supply probes had enough food to last the whole crew 56 days. That way if one or two probes had problems,…

And so it begins… (Moderator’s Note: Lots of action today! ~5k words, and we get to hear Watney’s inner dialogue for the first time. I’m excited! You’ll notice that I’ve left the “Chapter One” Heading where the book should’ve started. The stuff before that is similar to “Creation of Plastic;” I’ve left a note where it originally sat. All of the chapter headings have been left in place. This is also where the language starts to become a little too…

(Moderator’s Note: I am aware that this should have been posted four days ago. Starting tomorrow, every single entry will be posted on the correct date. However, chronologically and just plain logically, it didn’t make sense to push all of this forward and then wait a week for the rest of the book. Tomorrow will consist of the November 12 entry, and any gaps after that will be consistent with the timing of the book’s events.) Mission Day – Nov.…