The Martian Trivia
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88 free The Martian trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free The Martian trivia questions with answers. The Martian began as a serial on Andy Weir's blog, became a 99-cent Kindle bestseller and ended up as a Ridley Scott blockbuster with seven Oscar nominations. This The Martian trivia quiz covers both the book and the 2015 film: how Mark Watney gets stranded, how he grows potatoes and makes water, how NASA works out he is alive, the Pathfinder probe, the Hermes crew's mutiny and the Rich Purnell manoeuvre, and the improvised rescue at the end. It also covers the making of the film: the Budapest sound stages and Wadi Rum exteriors, the cast from Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain to Donald Glover, the disco soundtrack, the box office, the Golden Globe 'comedy' win, and how accurate the science really is. It suits a sci-fi movie night, a book club or a space-themed quiz. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and cited on the question, so you can see where each fact comes from.
30 of 88 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01About to take the next mission's rocket without permission, Watney gleefully gives himself which title?
A space pirate
A space pirate: Watney argues that Mars, owned by no nation, falls under the law of the sea, so taking the next mission's rocket without permission makes him one. Lawyers who checked say his logic is shaky.
Q 02How did the author of The Martian first publish the novel?
As a serial on his blog
As a serial on his blog: after literary agents had turned down his earlier work, he posted it free, a chapter at a time, from 2009, and readers' feedback helped him fix the science.
Q 03For how much did Weir first sell the Kindle edition of The Martian at fans' request?
99 cents
99 cents was the lowest price Amazon allowed; within months more people had bought that edition than had ever downloaded the free one, and it topped Amazon's science-fiction chart.
Q 04What is Mark Watney's scientific speciality?
Botany
Watney's speciality is botany, which is how he knows to farm Martian soil fertilised with the crew's waste; in the novel he doubles as the mission's mechanical engineer.
Q 05What is the name of the Mars mission Mark Watney is on when he is stranded in The Martian?
Ares III
Ares III was planned as a month on the plain of Acidalia Planitia; the next mission's ascent rocket had already been landed elsewhere on Mars, which gives Watney somewhere to aim for.
Q 06What is the name of the ship that carries the crew between Earth and Mars?
Hermes
Hermes is the ion-drive ship that ferries Ares crews between Earth and Mars; the crew vote unanimously to turn it around and go back for Watney.
Q 07What forces the crew to abandon Watney, believing him dead?
A dust storm
A dust storm's flying debris strikes Watney during the evacuation; NASA scientists later noted a real Martian storm would have almost no force in the thin air.
Q 08In the novel The Martian, what impales Watney during the evacuation?
An antenna
An antenna torn loose by the wind impales Watney and smashes his suit's bio-monitor, so the crew see him flatline and leave him for dead.
Q 09In The Martian, the storm that strands Watney threatens to topple what?
Their rocket
Their rocket, the Mars Ascent Vehicle, was close to tipping over in the wind, so the crew had to launch at once; the novel sets the storm six days in and the film moves it to day 18.
Q 10What crop does Watney farm inside the Hab?
Potatoes
Potatoes make Watney, by his own reckoning, the first colonist of Mars: once you grow crops somewhere, he says, you have officially colonised it.
Q 11Watney makes water for his crops from what?
Leftover rocket fuel
He uses leftover rocket fuel: passing the hydrazine over an iridium catalyst frees hydrogen, which he burns with oxygen to make water, a method chemists say would really work.
Q 12Which old NASA probe does Watney dig up to restore contact with Earth?
Pathfinder
Pathfinder had been silent since 1997, so NASA works out how to talk through it on a replica kept at JPL, and Watney then wires it to his rover so the two sides can exchange text.
Q 13Which NASA satellite planner is the first to notice Watney is alive?
Mindy Park
Mindy Park spots it in satellite photos of the abandoned base, where things have plainly been moved since the crew left; Weir said he pictured her as Korean, though the book never says so.
Q 21Who plays Mark Watney?
Matt Damon
Matt Damon had played a marooned astronaut only a year earlier, Dr Mann in Interstellar, but Mann turns on his rescuers while Watney is the hero everyone wants back.
Q 22Who directed The Martian?
Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott came aboard only after the film's screenwriter, who had planned to direct it himself, left to make a comic-book film that was later cancelled.
Q 23Which screenwriter adapted The Martian for the screen and later also adapted Project Hail Mary?
Drew Goddard
Drew Goddard wrote the script expecting to direct it too; after leaving for another project he said the man who replaced him had made a much better film than he could have.
Q 14Which NASA official decides to keep Watney's survival secret from his crewmates?
Teddy Sanders
Teddy Sanders, NASA's administrator, tells the public but keeps the news from the crew so that they stay focused on the long flight home, overruling their flight director.
Q 15What destroys the crop Watney is growing inside the Hab?
An airlock explosion
An airlock explosion: the airlock's canvas tore after Watney had used the same one over and over, far more than it was built for, and the sudden loss of air killed every plant.
Q 16Which space agency provides the booster that makes the rescue possible?
China's
China's space agency offers the booster it had built for its own Taiyang Shen solar probe, giving up a science mission of its own so that supplies can still be launched in time.
Q 17Which NASA astrodynamicist devises the slingshot plan that sends the crew's ship back to Mars?
Rich Purnell
Rich Purnell works out that the ship can skip its stop at Earth, swing round the planet for a gravity assist and head straight back to Mars, at the price of a much longer mission for the crew.
Q 18How do Watney's crewmates learn of the rescue plan that NASA's administrator has rejected?
Henderson secretly sends it to them
Henderson secretly sends it to them by email; once the crew commit, NASA's chief backs them in public but demands Henderson's resignation afterwards.
Q 19In the film The Martian, how does Watney cross the final gap to Lewis?
By piercing his suit to vent air
By piercing his suit to vent air, Watney jets toward Lewis in the film; in the novel it is Beck who goes out on a tether to grab him.
Q 20At the end of the film The Martian, what job has Watney taken back on Earth?
Astronaut survival instructor
Astronaut survival instructor is the film's own ending: the novel stops moments after the rescue, while the film jumps ahead to show Watney teaching new astronaut candidates.
Q 24Jessica Chastain plays which member of Watney's crew?
The mission commander
The mission commander, Melissa Lewis, is modelled on a real astronaut: Chastain met Tracy Caldwell Dyson in Houston and borrowed her matter-of-fact manner.
Q 25Which Community star plays the JPL astrodynamicist behind the slingshot rescue plan in The Martian?
Donald Glover
Donald Glover's character works out that the ship can skip its stop at Earth and swing straight back to Mars, an idea his bosses at first turn down as too risky.
Q 26Which actor plays the NASA administrator who keeps Watney's survival from his crewmates?
Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels had met a Martian before, in the 1999 comedy My Favorite Martian. Here his NASA chief vetoes a bold rescue rather than risk five more lives to save one.
Q 27Chiwetel Ejiofor's NASA director is Vincent Kapoor in the film The Martian, but what is his first name in the novel?
Venkat
Venkat Kapoor, a Hindu in the novel, became Vincent on screen, with a Hindu father and a Baptist mother; an Asian-American media group objected, and Weir replied that an American Venkat could be Black.
Q 28The interior sets for The Martian were built at Korda Studios, just outside which city?
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest, Hungary is a short drive east of the studios in the village of Etyek; the interiors were shot there from November 2014, months before the crew moved on to a real desert.
Q 29Which desert stood in for the surface of Mars in The Martian?
Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum, Jordan's Valley of the Moon, hosted only eight days of filming in March 2015; the rest of the film's Mars had been built indoors on sound stages months earlier.
Q 30What did the makers of The Martian give the country that hosted their desert shoot?
The Mars rover model
The Mars rover model built for the shoot was presented to Jordan in thanks for its hospitality, and it went on show at the Royal Automobile Museum in Amman.