Corrected entry: Stated in the early part of the movie, several times, it takes we minutes for a radio transmission to travel between Earth and Mars. but the astronauts carry on a real time conversation with their wives from the surface of Mars. Wouldn't this have immediately blown the conspiracy? Would NASA ever screw up that bad on such a simple detail?
Dave Messer
28th Jan 2018
Correction: Like The Martian and others, the assumption is that the long waits between messages are cut out, because watching a lot of people waiting doesn't make for good cinema.