One Man Left Behind

Andy Weir: "The Martian"

Do you believe the crew did the right in abandoning the search for mark? Was there an alternative choice?

While reading the novel, “The Martian” by Andy Weir, there were a lot of hard decisions that needed to be made to survive through the unsuspecting events that had happened throughout the book. The hardest decision that the crew had to make was to leave Mark behind or go back and look for his body and possible all die. The crew decided to leave Mark behind to survive and make it back to earth. If I was in the same situation as Commander Lewis I would have handled the situation just as she did. The situation of abandoning either a crew member or friend makes the decision easy to connect with. During hockey season all my teammates that attended the same school carpooled to practices together. If a teammate was late to the meeting spot that we met at every day after school, we would leave him because the rest of us did not want to be late for practice and get in trouble with the coaches. Although, my connection with the decision is not life or death I can still connect with Commander Lewis when she made the decision to leave Mark behind. There was not really an alternative choice that Commander Lewis could have chosen. The reason I say that is because they had to either stay and try and find their partner or take the risk that the MAV was going to tip over and damage it severely. “If it hits the ground, it’ll do structural damage to the tanks, frame, and probably the second-stage engine. We’d never be able to fix it.” The best choice was to leave Mark and get the rest of the crew to safety, which is what was the choice she chose.

Reference

Weir, Andy The Martian. Crown: MC, 2014