Mission to Mars - "The Big 5"
OPENING QUESTIONS:Have a conversation with your crew about the movie The Martian.
Please write down an item that changed your thinking about *any* aspect of travel to Mars or living there.
Please write down two items that you know now that you didn't know before you watched the film regarding travel to Mars or living there.
Please write down one item that you already knew but was reinforced by something you saw in the film.
OBJECTIVE:
WORD FOR TODAY:
WORK O' THE DAY:
Now please arrange those writings/strips into the three topic areas outlined above
Now please arrange those by <some sort of something> your group determines within topic area.
Let's discuss.
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The film begins very dramatically. Why is that situation actually impossible on the surface of Mars? <by the way, recall that I mentioned the author knew it when he wrote it, but indulged in a bit of "poetic license" in order to get his astronaut stranded on Mars in a believable way>
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The action settles down a bit and our hero gets more contemplative as he resolves to "Science the &#*$ out of <the situation>."
What are his concerns? In otherwords, what physical, tangible problems does he have to address?
Let's now revisit the environment on Mars, what makes it SOOOO difficult to live there? (Let's discuss).
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There are five absolute (We will refer to these as our "Big 5") requirements for living on Mars?
The costume designers for the movie "The Martian" worked very closely with NASA to develop the Martian Surface Suit pictured here.
It may surprise you to know that we still HAVE NOT actually developed a functional Martian Surface suit like that... why do you suppose that is?
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Recall that our goal today is to have each group pick one engineering/design/ development aspect of building a colony on Mars and then further exploring the challenges associated with that topic.