Friso94

21st Mar 2018

The Martian (2015)

Question: The gravity acceleration on Mars is 3.71/ms2 a little more than double our Moon and approximately 1/3 of Earth gravity. For this reason every falling object or walking/running people or bouncing object should be attracted to Mars in a "slow motion" fashion. Watching the movie I didn't notice such slow-motion effect. Was that a deliberate error in order to avoid huge additional costs and probably making the movie less tedious?

Answer: Most likely, yes. Though it is worth noting that is probably also part of the reason why the number of falling objects on screen is kept to a minimum, and there is one more thing: there is much less air resistance on Mars than there is on earth because of the thin atmosphere. For a real world comparison, look at the footage of Apollo 15 where David Scott drops a hammer and a feather, and the hammer doesn't fall much slower than it would on earth.

Friso94

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