The Martian
Chapters - Andy Weir
Chapter 1: Sol 6
Mark Watney wakes up alone on Mars after being impaled by an antenna during an emergency evacuation on Sol 6. His crew left him for dead when his bio-monitor flatlined and his suit pressure dropped to near zero, but his wound and blood inadvertently sealed the breach. He makes it back to the Hab, stitches himself up, and takes stock of his dire situation: no communications, no way off the planet, and supplies designed to last only 31 days.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Melissa Lewis, Beth Johanssen
Chapter 2: Sol 7
After a night's sleep, Mark methodically inventories his supplies and finds he has roughly 300 days of food for one person, six functional EVA suits, and all critical Hab systems in working order. He calculates that his only hope of rescue is the Ares 4 mission arriving in four years, 3200 kilometres away at Schiaparelli crater. He sets himself two goals: fix communications to reach Earth, and failing that, survive long enough to contact Hermes when it returns with the Ares 4 crew.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 3: Sol 10
After three days of searching by rover, Mark gives up looking for the communications dish, which was likely blown far away and buried by the storm. He concludes he cannot jury-rig a replacement capable of reaching Earth and begins rationing his EVA time due to limited CO2 filters. On a hopeful note, he starts thinking about using his botany expertise to grow food, noting that he has some Earth soil and plant seeds from his mission experiments.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 4: Sol 11
In the shortest log entry yet, Mark simply wonders how the Chicago Cubs are doing, revealing a moment of homesickness and the mundane concerns that persist even in a life-or-death situation.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 5: Sol 14
Mark devises his farming plan, deciding to use human waste as fertiliser to create viable soil from Martian dirt. He recovers dried waste bags from outside the Hab and begins cultivating bacteria in a water-and-waste mixture. He finds plantable food in the supplies, including potatoes, peas, and beans, and calculates he will need to cover the entire 92-square-metre Hab floor with 10 centimetres of soil, requiring him to haul 9.2 cubic metres of Martian dirt through the airlock.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 6: Sol 15
Mark spends twelve gruelling hours hauling Martian soil into the Hab, managing to cover only about five square metres. He improves his efficiency by filling a large container inside the airlock rather than carrying small loads, but the work is physically punishing. He treats himself to a full meal and painkillers, finding solace in the visible progress.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 7: Sol 16
Mark confronts the water problem: Martian soil is completely desiccated, and he needs 40 litres per cubic metre to make it viable. With only 300 litres total in the Hab and needing to keep 50 in reserve, he can only hydrate about two-thirds of the floor. He wets his first five-square-metre plot, mixes in composted waste, and spreads Earth soil on top to introduce bacteria. It is Thanksgiving, and he reflects painfully on what his family must be going through, believing he is dead.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 8: Sol 22
Mark's soil preparation is progressing well, with the former Martian dirt now rich and full of bacterial life after its first doubling. However, he runs the numbers on potato farming and realises that even with his 62 square metres of farmland, he can only produce about 288 calories per day - far short of the 1500 he needs. The potatoes will extend his food supply by roughly 90 days, pushing starvation from Sol 400 to Sol 490, but he still faces a thousand-day food deficit before Ares 4 arrives.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Beth Johanssen
Chapter 9: Sol 25
Mark attacks the food problem mathematically, calculating he needs to generate 1100 calories per day to survive until Ares 4. He identifies ways to expand his farmland to 126 square metres by using all Hab floor space, bunks, lab tables, and the rovers' emergency pop-tents. Combined with more intensive farming techniques, he estimates he could produce about 850 calories per day, putting survival within reach if he minimises physical exertion. The remaining obstacle is water: he needs 250 additional litres and has no obvious source.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 10: Sol 26
Mark hauls more dry soil into the Hab and performs another dirt-doubling to expand his viable farmland. He cuts his twelve precious potatoes into quarters, ensuring each piece has at least two eyes for sprouting, and plants the first seed crop. The potatoes came refrigerated as ingredients for the crew's planned Thanksgiving dinner, a stroke of luck since freeze-dried ones would not germinate. He sets the Hab temperature to 25.5 degrees Celsius to accelerate growth and estimates a 40-day turnaround for the first harvestable tubers.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Melissa Lewis
Chapter 11: Sol 29
Mark finishes hauling all the soil he needs and sets up the two rover pop-tents as additional growing space, connecting them to the Hab's air supply via equaliser hoses. He struggles to attach the pop-tent airlocks to the Hab since they were designed for rover connections, ultimately accepting the air loss from each entry and exit. The pop-tents give him 20 more square metres of farmland, bringing his total to 126. He still lacks the water to hydrate all that new soil.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 12: Sol 30
Mark formulates a dangerous plan to manufacture water by combining hydrogen and oxygen. He plans to harvest oxygen by using the MAV fuel plant to collect CO2 from the Martian atmosphere and running it through the oxygenator. For hydrogen, he will extract it from the MDV's 292 litres of leftover hydrazine rocket fuel using the engine's iridium catalyst. The process will be extremely hazardous since liberating hydrogen from hydrazine produces intense heat, and burning hydrogen in an oxygen atmosphere risks a catastrophic explosion.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Rick Martinez
Chapter 13: Sol 31
Mark works through the logistics of his water-making plan and realises he cannot store the hydrogen and oxygen separately, so he must produce and burn them simultaneously. He hooks up the MAV fuel plant to collect CO2, planning to vent it into the Hab where the oxygenator will convert it to oxygen, then slowly decompose hydrazine over the catalyst and burn the released hydrogen in small controlled flames. He acknowledges the plan offers many opportunities for a fiery death but sees no alternative.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 14: Sol 32
Mark prepares for the hydrazine reaction, retrieving six fuel tanks and the reaction chamber from the MDV. He rigs a makeshift system with a water hose, duct tape, and a plastic tent over the reaction area to channel hydrogen up through a chimney made from a sacrificed space suit's air hose. He fashions a pilot light from splinters of Martinez's wooden cross and copies his log to both rovers in case the Hab explodes. This may be his last entry.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Beth Johanssen
Chapter 15: Sol 33
Mark successfully begins the hydrazine reaction, producing hydrogen gas that he burns in small controlled bursts at the top of his chimney. He wears protective gear against the toxic hydrazine and works carefully, monitoring temperatures with a thermocouple. He produces roughly 50 litres of water before stopping, then spends all night continuing the process. The Hab becomes a tropical jungle at 30 degrees with extreme humidity, but the water reclaimer collects the moisture and fills its tank for the first time.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Rick Martinez, Beth Johanssen, Alex Vogel
Chapter 16: Sol 37
Mark discovers he has been accumulating unburned hydrogen in the Hab atmosphere. While making water over the past few days, not all the hydrogen from the hydrazine reaction was burning off, and it has built up to 64 percent of the air. The Hab is now essentially a bomb waiting for a single spark. He flees to Rover 2, where he has at most two days before the CO2 filters run out, and must figure out how to deal with the explosive atmosphere from there.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 17: Sol 38
From the rover, Mark devises a plan to deal with the hydrogen bomb: trick the atmospheric regulator into removing all oxygen from the Hab, making the hydrogen inert, then burn it off in controlled bursts using small squirts of oxygen and a spark. The complication is that removing all oxygen will kill the soil bacteria he has been cultivating, so he plans to cool the Hab to 1 degree Celsius to put the bacteria into near-hibernation and reduce their oxygen needs to a survivable 1 percent. He also discovers Commander Lewis's music collection is nothing but disco.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Melissa Lewis
Chapter 18: Sol 39
Mark refines his hydrogen removal plan: he will bag the potato plants and move them to the heated rover to protect them from the cold, then drop the Hab temperature to 1 degree, reduce oxygen to 1 percent, and burn off the hydrogen with controlled bursts. He rigs the rover's heater to stay on while unoccupied and prepares for the risky operation the next day.
POV: Mark Watney
Chapter 19: Sol 40
Mark executes his hydrogen removal plan but hits several snags. The atmospheric regulator's safety interlocks prevent him from lowering oxygen below 15 percent, so he tricks it by feeding it pure oxygen from a spacesuit through a plastic bag over one intake. He burns off hydrogen using improvised tools, but an explosion knocks him across the Hab and rips off his oxygen mask. He nearly suffocates in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere before reaching Lewis's spacesuit to breathe, then gets the regulator back online. His clothes are burned but he is alive, and the explosion actually finished clearing the hydrogen.
POV: Mark Watney·Mentioned: Rick Martinez, Beth Johanssen, Melissa Lewis, Alex Vogel
Chapter 20: Sol 41
Mark spends the day running exhaustive diagnostics on every Hab system after the explosion. Everything checks out, including the critical oxygenator and atmospheric regulator. Most importantly, the soil bacteria survived the ordeal and remain healthy and active. He figures out the explosion was caused by oxygen he was unknowingly exhaling past his medical mask into the hydrogen-rich atmosphere. He resumes water production with a safer approach, doing frequent small hydrogen burns to prevent buildup.
POV: Mark Watney