Sort of... there's a few conceits taken for the purposes of the story:
1) There is insufficient air pressure to be able to cause a strong enough wind to threaten tipping over the lander.
2) Mars doesn't have a strong enough magnetic field to be able to shield the planet from solar and cosmic radiation. Radiation shielding was not even mentioned in the movie, in the book it was "solved" with the Hab canvas. A material capability we don't have yet.
3) Packaging the potatoes for spaceflight would have actually killed their capability to sprout.
4) Space suits (especially EVA) are impossible to take off and put on by yourself.
.
Andy Weir knows this and had to break these rules in order to tell an otherwise incredible story.
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I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Plait (a stickler for space/astronomy detail) about rule breaking in writing scifi and the short answer is: story is king. Don't do it too much and be internally consistant.
Coming from a space pedant like me, he gets a pass. He has written an incredible story which is otherwise a very scientificly accurate movie.
It was written so scientificly accurately, he has often been asked who were his sources in NASA, JPL and the Astronaut Corps were.
The book (and movie) are done so well in fact, that there was a huge amount of buzz for it in the space science community including NASA and the Astronaut Corps. Astronaut Chris Hatfield was quoted in the "praise for" section of the book and Astronaut Clayton Anderson wrote a review for it.
http://qz.com/513220/a-real-life-astronaut-reviews-the-matt-damon-film-the-martian/
Director Ridley Scott had NASA help in making the movie and involved them in the process.
.
I highly recommend listening to/watching interviews with and about Andy Weir and the making of the movie.
1) There is insufficient air pressure to be able to cause a strong enough wind to threaten tipping over the lander.
2) Mars doesn't have a strong enough magnetic field to be able to shield the planet from solar and cosmic radiation. Radiation shielding was not even mentioned in the movie, in the book it was "solved" with the Hab canvas. A material capability we don't have yet.
3) Packaging the potatoes for spaceflight would have actually killed their capability to sprout.
4) Space suits (especially EVA) are impossible to take off and put on by yourself.
.
Andy Weir knows this and had to break these rules in order to tell an otherwise incredible story.
.
I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Plait (a stickler for space/astronomy detail) about rule breaking in writing scifi and the short answer is: story is king. Don't do it too much and be internally consistant.
It was written so scientificly accurately, he has often been asked who were his sources in NASA, JPL and the Astronaut Corps were.
The book (and movie) are done so well in fact, that there was a huge amount of buzz for it in the space science community including NASA and the Astronaut Corps. Astronaut Chris Hatfield was quoted in the "praise for" section of the book and Astronaut Clayton Anderson wrote a review for it.
http://qz.com/513220/a-real-life-astronaut-reviews-the-matt-damon-film-the-martian/
Director Ridley Scott had NASA help in making the movie and involved them in the process.
.
I highly recommend listening to/watching interviews with and about Andy Weir and the making of the movie.