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Mistakes

The young guy builds the "woman of his dreams" with M&M's in that space ship. The double-helix rotates around its own axis, though it wouldn't do so - even in zero gravity. See more...

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Mission to Mars (2000) - 15 corrections

Directed by Brian De Palma, starring Connie Nielsen, Don Cheadle, Gary Sinise, Jerry O'Connell, Kim Delaney, Tim Robbins (add more)

Genres: Adventure, Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Corrections
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The spinning habitation module is far too small and is spinning too slowly to produce any sort of force to simulate gravity. e.g. If you assume that the module has a radius of 5m, and is spinning at 0.2 revs/sec, then an astronaut would be subject to an acceleration of 0.2 m/s squared, or 0.02g. [Good estimations, but incorrect result. "5m radius" and "0.2 rev/sec" are very reasonable estimations. The formula for centrifugal force is "F = V^2 / r", so F = (circumference * 0.2/sec) ^ 2 / 5m = [(2*5m)*pi * 0.2/sec] ^ 2 / 5m = [(2*pi * m/s) ^ 2] / 5m = (4*pi^2/5) m/s^2 ~ 7.9 m/s^2 That's 7.9. Earth gravity is 9.8, so that's pretty close to Earth gravity: *** 0.8g in fact.]
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In space there is no sound at all, so we couldn't hear the explosion of the spaceship. [As is pointed out every single time something like this gets submitted, the use of sound in space is a standard movie convention and is not considered a mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
On Mars, Gary Sinise spills a bag of M&M's (leading him to figure out the DNA puzzle). When the candy is shown on the floor, you can see that it is Skittles. [It's M&Ms alright. You can even see the 'M' on the sweets on the floor.]
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When the Martian hologram shows Earth, the woman says that it is Earth before the continents separated. However, we see that the continents are indeed divided on the hologram. [No, they're not. Before the continents separated, about half of the Earth was entirely covered by land and the other part was totally flooded, forming one big ocean. That's where you see the alien ship "landing".]
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The crew of the rescue mission abandon ship after the engines explode. They then rendevous with a supply module that's already been in Martian orbit. The problem is that the engines exploded just as they were attempting to slow from solar orbit to Martian orbit, so the crew are still on a fly-by trajectory into interplanetary space, and they wouldn't stay in the vicinity of Mars for very long at all. [They weren't slowing, they turned the ship (that's why the fuel loss gets right behind the engines) and they were about to accelerate to change direction and enter Mars' atmosphere at the best angle, as a perpendicular trajectory would fry them. The final direction is given by the explosion, not by engines.]
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When the engine fuel leaks out after the meteor hits the ship, it comes out perpendicular to the direction of the ship's motion. Well, if you remember Newton's Laws of motion, then you'll know then an object will continue to move at the same velocity unless subject to a force. So how on earth does the fuel end up behind the ship at the engines? It should continue to move away from the ship, because nothing will make it do otherwise. [It does keep moving in the same direction, it's the ship that rotates to match the best angle to enter in Mars' atmosphere and, as the fuel was moving perpendicularly away from the ship, what happens is perfectly possible.]
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When they are watching the hologram in the giant face, the planets go in the wrong direction around the sun. [The direction the planets are going depends on where you are viewing it from. We see them going one direction because we are always shown them from what we consider the "top". The Martians may have always viewed them from what we would consider the "bottom" making them appear to go in the opposite direction.]
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Black gaffer tape can be seen on the orange plastic, presumably covering holes from punctures and tears. Yet if any of these had occurred the greenhouse covering would have exploded, like a balloon. [If the material is strong enough it would not have exploded, it would have just deflated. Cheadle's character could have repaired the holes and then reinflated the greenhouse.]
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When Tim Robbins is helplessly floating into space, his rescue is not as impossible as it is depicted. It ought to be common knowledge let alone known to an astronaut that an object in a vacuum requires only a minimal amount of thrust to travel almost perpetually in the one direction. Fuel would only be an issue with turning around and returning. They'd only need a tiny bit of thrust to catch him. [While it only requires a minimal amount of thrust to keep going that is not what they need to do. They must ACCELERATE to a rate faster than Robbins velocity, use more fuel to match velocities with Robbins, use TWICE as much fuel to counter Robbins' AND his rescuer's velocity to go back in the other direction, & and since there is a deadline (entering the Mars atmosphere and burning up) they may have to use even higher accelerations to get to Robbins and to get back to the ship to do it in time. It takes even MORE fuel when you start taking into account overcoming the momentum of the two astronauts.]
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Jerry O' Connell refers to earthquakes on Mars. On Mars, earthquakes are called marsquakes. [Well, technically true, but the word "earthquake" would have been more familiar and more natural for him to use than "marsquake."]
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When Tim Robbins is floating away in space his wife could have easily saved him. She had that little thing that she sent out into space that could grab her husband. All she needed to do was use enough fuel to get out to a range where she could get the grabber to Tim. Then pull him in and send the grabber back out to the ship and get one of them to catch it to pull them in. It's not that hard of a concept. You would think that highly trained astronauts would be able to figure that out. [This is exactly what happens in the movie. She goes out as far as she can, extends the line and it is too short. If she had gone any further she wouldn't have had the fuel to get back and the line would have been too short to reach the remaining crew.]
Edit
Gary Sinise's character looks at a computer screen with a short section (about two full twists) of DNA on it and proclaims that "This DNA looks human." He could have been looking at DNA from any single-celled organism and it would have looked just as human as what he was looking at. All mammals have 90+ percent of their DNA in common, he would have to have sequenced the entire DNA strand (something like 3 billion pairs of amino acids) to identify it as human. [Perhaps Don Cheadle's character had sequenced it already and highlighted the part that differs in being human. He had been there 6 months after all.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
Contrary to popular belief, space is NOT cold. The vacuum is a perfect insulator and therefore an object in a vacuum will only lose heat by radiation, which for a drop of liquid or a human head is very slow. Objects which suddenly find themselves in a vacuum do not suddenly get all icy. Real astronauts had to carry lots of extra oxygen in their space-suits to carry away their excess body heat, otherwise that heat would have nowhere to go, and they would bake. [Heat is the energy created when two bodies do not share the same temperature. The average temperature of the vacuum of space is about 4kelvin, enough to maintain liquid helium. The rate of radiation is based on the temperature difference, not the surfaces. Real astronauts have both heating and cooling in their suits.]
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The space ship's super-computer (with touchscreen, voice-control and stuff) doesn't notice the hole in the fuel tank and the loss of fuel. Even my car can notice fuel-reduction when driving. [The hole is not in a fuel tank, but in a fuel line, which is pressurised only moments before ignition. So there is no pressure loss before pressurisation of those lines.]
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Don Cheanile's character has been stranded on Mars for over a year. How come he can't cut his hair or shave, but his teeth look so white and clean? [Simple, before he left earth they cleaned his teeth and sterilized his mouth from plaque. The food on the spaceship was likewise sterilized so there would be no more building up. In the spaceship and then in the clean manufactured atmosphere on mars there would also be no pollutants to discolour his teeth.]
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