An Engineer Reviews The Martian

I read Andy Weir's The Martian when it was first published and loved it. I thought it was the best book I read that year.  My hope was that someone would snap up the movie rights and get it the theater as soon as possible.  The movie is better than I hoped for.

I saw the movie today - outstanding across the board.  Several comments:

• Astronaut Mark Watney is both a botanist and mechanical engineer - "Everyone on the mission had two specialties.  I'm a botanist and mechanical engineer; basically, the mission's fix-it-man who played with plants.  The mechanical engineering might save my life if something breaks." What actually saves his life is his interdisciplinary training and experience - on a planet with truly "wicked" problems he cuts across discipline boundaries very effectively - parts botanist, agricultural engineer, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, computer scientist, etc.  Each problem is a seminar on systems thinking and systems engineering - you see the axiom that every influence is both cause and effect.  Nothing is ever influenced in just one direction - every solution is balanced by a series of complex constraints.
• You see and understand from the movie that the reliability of a solution is as critical as the solution itself.  Engineering is ultimately about adapting to a changing world - where changes on Mars produced solutions that were both reliable and unreliable.
• The book has a much richer and insightful view of the math and science of the various problems and solutions Watney faces.  What is obvious is that he is data-driven and being data-driven is a precondition for his survival on Mars.
• You see both point solutions (i.e, his ability to heat the rover) and platform solutions (i.e., the system to grow the potatoes).  Engineers learn to combine, connect, and construct - and if you can reduce and simplify, even better!!
• Engineers work at the intersection of the feasible, viable, and desirable.  Watney had to manage this under the umbrella of survivability.
• Engineers are integrators who pull ideas together from multiple streams of knowledge.  Watney was a master of this.  He was great at thinking in terms of creating new "solution spaces" - suites of possibilities that offered new choices and extended his time on Mars.  Watney was full-spectrum versatile and adaptable - most organizations only dream about engineers like Mark.
• If you know construction you have a jump on destruction - many of his solutions required deconstruction skills. 
• He was a throwback to historical engineers - more the "Think-and-Do" skill sets.
• Data gets physical on Mars.
• The heart of an engineer is optimism - Watney was the master of this.  He was purposeful, smart, and driven - all engineers need these attributes.  He was stubborn on vision (i.e, getting off Mars) but flexible on detail.  Engineering solutions always take the same path - the only way out is to move forward.  Accentuate the positive and possible and get on with it.
• Watney understood risk management - weighing the relative merits of various choices with potential outcomes.  He was constantly in risk mitigation mode.

Go to movie but read the book.  It is a first class text on the art and science of engineering and a manual on how engineers think.