Why Project Hail Mary and The Martian is so important to me:
From before I can remember, I have adored space. I would read my mum’s encyclopaedias from the 90s with Hubble’s images, have an abundance of glow in the dark stars and planets on my ceiling in every house we lived in, and soaked in everything I could about space. I was still am obsessed with space.
I was never too sure what I wanted to be growing up. Maybe a meteorologist? Maybe a sound engineer on movies? But in 2015 I read the opening line for The Martian, and I only fell deeper in love. I’ve read that book to bits, watched the movie more times than I could count. But more importantly, it uncovered what I really wanted to do with my life:
It’s silly, but I wanted to be an astronaut more than anything. Like, really fucking badly.
I studied super hard, consumed all the knowledge I could, looked at my pathways that I could take, went to all the science expos in my city (and yes I wore the dumb science pun shirts. I love them). They even did a special screening of The Martian where scientists talked about it afterwards. At school, my favourite subject was physics because we got to learn all the cool stuff and the space things. I loved education, but not so much the people—not knowing I had ADHD at the time did a number on my social life.
This is where the problems started.
I’m Australian and back then we didn’t have the Australian Space Agency yet, and to be a NASA astronaut I’d need to have US citizenship of some kind.
Then my health problems arose. There’s no way I’d ever get sent into space.
So, I looked back on The Martian and searched for other ways I could live out my dream. I’d always been passionate about writing; so I decided that I would be the one to make the stories. It didn’t exactly go down like that, but that was my inspiration at the time.
I wanted people to find happiness in my stories the same way I’d found happiness and inspiration in The Martian. I just wanted to have a positive impact on someone.
And so I pursued film—which happened to be a month before Covid started and the film industry went to shambles. During my degree, I struggled harder than I ever had before. I was a shy, anxious, burnt out gifted kid with zero friends until my last year and the structure of high school was gone. I almost dropped out. Except my final year sci-fi loving TV development teacher noticed my struggles and took it easy on me. He was the only reason I didn’t quit.
I graduated, got diagnosed with severe ADHD, moved to another state to be with my now-fiancé. It was supposed to be a good move for work, better opportunities in the industry. Yet, I went unemployed for a full year and finally managed to land a job in retail. I just didn’t have what it took to network the way my peers did. Most of them work in film and TV now and I’m so happy for them.
And so when my partner bought me the signed, leather bound edition of The Martian, I couldn’t bring myself to read it as I feared it would remind me of the person I wanted to truly be:
The years have gone by since then. My health has declined further—I’ve gotten diseases I was told I’d never get. So I’ve thrown myself into work, trying to move up so I can give stability to the family I wish to build one day. But I haven’t had the heart to pick up The Martian again despite it being my favourite piece of media/literature. Probably the single most important influence in my upbringing.
And then came Project Hail Mary.
…the book on my shelf I’d been scared to pick up for the same reason I haven’t re-read The Martian.
It was in the cinema that I felt as if I were my younger, hopeful self with a whole future ahead of me—as if I was watching The Martian for the first time again. To see Ryland Grace, a homage to the cool science teachers who helped me back then and nurtured my love for science and space, go on the journey he did… it left me feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Space, science, a devastatingly beautiful score, and the magic of filmmaking: it honestly broke me.
I’ve finally thrown myself into the book, and I plan on finally re-reading The Martian afterwards.
Project Hail Mary left me feeling hopeful in many ways. Not just for the human spirit, but also myself. It made me realise my passion for space is not as dead as I thought. It gave me hope that one day, I might actually go back to university and do something in that field: do the PhD I always wanted to do even if I don’t know what I’d want it to be about.
That maybe I could be a little bit more like Dr. Grace.
We do, after all, share a name.
No one’s futures are set. Even my life now is vastly different from how I imagined it. But maybe I could steer it back in the direction I wanted it to go—even just a little bit. I don’t need to be an astronaut. I literally can’t. But I can do something else.
So, thank you Andy Weir for once again being the biggest impact in my life.
