The Martian Quest

In the movie, The Martian, Mark Whatney faces many different things on mars. These three challenges are a constant supply of oxygen, a steady supply of water to drink for the human body, and a good supply of food. Mars makes all of these hard to do because it is very cold (This keeps water frozen most of the time), the soil is mainly composed of iron, there are constant dust storms, and the air is not full of oxygen (Or if it is then it also has other chemicals in it to make it to where humans can't breathe it). Earth makes up for all of these challenges with the great temperature depending where you are on Earth, the soil also depends on where you are and even though it has a lot of nitrogen in it the plants actually use nitrogen, and the temperature (Again depending where you are) is great, which makes the water not freeze. Whatney, in the movie, overcomes these challenges in a couple different ways. For the temperature problem, he actually does most of his work inside of the station that was left on the planet. Inside the station, he takes the crew's excrement and the martian soil and mixes it to make a more fertile soil. He uses this soil to grow the potatoes in.

http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/9725/664975_084.jpg

http://3blmedia.com/media/images/martian-gallery.jpg

 He then creates a little set up in the middle of the potatoes which uses excess hydrogen in the atmosphere and creates a way for water to come from it. This water is used for him and to water the potatoes that he found were on the station. In the future, I predict, that humans will already have many machines that can generate or break down many chemical compounds so that the base elements can be used and that could create a way for oxygen to be created easier on other planets. Also, by the time that they have the technology to do that I suspect that they will have many pressurized stations to form colonies on Mars.