What THE MARTIAN gets RIGHT about COMMUNICATING in SPACE #science #space #physics #astro #themartian

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]As an astrophysicist, I'm going to explain what The Martian gets right about communicating in space. At one point in the film, it's mentioned that it will take 32 minutes for two-way communication. That's actually very realistic. And here's why. Any messages sent from Earth to Mars or back would travel at the speed of light. That's really fast. 300 million meters/s or roughly 670 million miles per hour.

[00:00:30]The trouble is Mars is a long way away.

[00:00:34]Depending on where exactly Earth and Mars are in relation to each other, they could be up to 250 million miles apart.

[00:00:42]So even as fast as that message is traveling, it's going to take a while to get there. And then even once it does, you're going to have to wait just as long for a reply back. And that makes that 32 minutes comfortably within the amount of time it could take.

[00:01:00]Definitely not as easy as sending a quick text.