Research Explainer

By ignoring the hard realities of human space travel, science fiction serves as propaganda.

I found the Project Hail Mary book and movie to be thrilling, funny, and emotional. They fully deserve their status as a bestseller book and blockbuster movie. That said, the science behind them is bogus; and while their aim is little more than to entertain, which they do in spades, their unintended effect is to serve as propaganda for human space travel.

Like space operas from Star Trek to Star Wars to The Expanse, author Andy Weir’s Project Hail  Mary ignores the hard reality that deep space is unavoidably perilous, even lethal; and that sending astronauts on long voyages is currently impractical. NASA has, in fact, long recognized that it faces many severe, unsolved “Red Risks” of human deep-space travel, including radiation health effects, degraded vision, cognitive decline, and deficient food and nutrition.

Unlike in fictional space travel, real spacecraft are not spacious and comfortable, but claustrophobic. For example, the Orion capsule flown on the Artemis II mission is only about the space of two minivans. In real space travel, fuel is severely limited; radiation is hazardously intense; gravity does not magically exist; and food is not instantly synthesized.

Science fiction should more accurately be called fictional science, for it does not seek to portray real science. Rather, it uses science as a fig leaf to disguise what is essentially magic. The aim of writers of fictional science is to use science to accomplish a suspension of disbelief and spin an engaging yarn. Indeed, the Project Hail Mary book and movie are replete with authoritative-seeming scientific instruments and explanations to achieve that suspension of disbelief.

Some examples of how Project Hail Mary’s fictional science does not represent real science show how it can give a false sense that human deep-space travel is feasible:

A central, threatening organism in Project Hail Mary is “Astrophage,” which Weir describes as “space algae.” Figments of Weir’s marvelously fertile imagination, they infest the sun and neighboring stars and sap their energy.  However, such infestation is impossible. The sun and other stars are cauldrons of superhot thermonuclear atomic plasma, in which no molecules could survive.

Also, Weir has his Astrophage magically convert solar energy into mass and vice versa, propelling themselves in the process. In his tale, Weir uses these microbes as a fuel source immensely more powerful than conventional fuels. It’s capable of propelling the Hail Mary spacecraft to near the speed of light, enabling it to reach its destination in only four years.

To reduce the psychological impact of such a trip, Weir has his astronauts put into a medically induced coma. They are connected to a multitude of tubes and IVs delivering sustenance and carrying away waste. And they are cared for by automated robotic arms.

In reality, no such imagined technology, even if it did exist, could keep an astronaut alive. A vast amount of research on cells, tissues, animals, and humans has shown that radiation, weightlessness, disease, and other deep-space hazards can damage every organ—heart, lungs, blood, immune system, brain, or eyes. And deep space is a “serial killer:” Like the serial circuits of old-time Christmas lights, in which the loss of one defective bulb extinguished the entire string of lights, the failure of any organ can cause death. And in multi-year voyages like that of the Hail Mary, that failure is certain, with not just two out of the three astronauts dying, as depicted in the book and movie.

Radiation in the form of high-energy subatomic particles called Galactic Cosmic Rays is an overwhelming health hazard in deep space. Erupting from exploding stars, galactic centers, and gamma-ray bursts, they easily penetrate spacecraft hulls, even triggering cascades of dangerous secondary particles. But Weir cleverly invents a radiation barrier for his fictional spacecraft by giving his Astrophage the magical property to stop cosmic rays and creating a protective Astrophage layer around the spacecraft hull.

Nor does Weir ignore the phenomenon of weightlessness, which profoundly affects real astronauts, weakening bones and muscles and clouding vision. He has his spacecraft create artificial  gravity by continuously accelerating and decelerating on its voyage and employing centrifugal force when it arrives at its destination. However, such continuous acceleration and deceleration are not feasible in real life, given the limits on fuel. And NASA has no plans to employ centrifugal force to create artificial gravity because engineers have determined that such a craft would be far too expensive and complex to build and operate. It would suffer maintenance, guidance, navigation, and control problems.

Besides physiological effects, real weightlessness also produces profound physical distress. In Project Hail Mary, protagonist Ryland Grace took weightlessness with no apparent ill effects. And while the video transmissions from Artemis II portrayed astronauts smiling and in no apparent discomfort, it was likely a show. The unmasked reality of weightless effects is far different. Here’s how astronaut Mike Massimo vividly described his first weightless days in space:

. . .you feel horrible, absolutely terrible. Adjusting your body to space is painful. . . your spine elongates—again, because there’s no gravity keeping it compressed. You grow about an inch in space, and all those sensitive muscles in your back have to stretch and adjust. That’s painful, too. Then there’s the nausea. . . That whole first day I floated around feeling like I was going to barf at any moment. . . To your brain, floating sideways or upside down feels the same as standing right side up. So if you spin around or flip upside down, the sensation you get is not that you’ve spun or flipped around. What you feel is that the room is spinning and flipping around you while you’re staying perfectly still, which causes the worst vomit-inducing feeling of vertigo you’ve ever experienced.

Food is another major problem that has not been solved for real-life deep-space voyages. In Project Hail Mary, Grace subsists on a diet of nutrient-rich slurry,  and food packs such as spaghetti, eggs and burritos.  Real astronauts depending on such severely limited foods would suffer extreme nutritional and psychological problems. Astronauts on the International Space Station eat a menu of foods constantly supplied from Earth. And the Artemis II crew had a wide variety of foods for their ten-day voyage. But deep-space voyages would require foods to maintain quality for years in storage, even as they are degraded by radiation.

As one review of space food concluded, “No food system to date has been devised or tested or has demonstrated it can provide adequate acceptability and nutrition for 5 years, let alone one that also meets the restricted mass, volume, and storage in the hostile spaceflight environment (e.g., radiation exposure, temperature extremes).”

Despite the inaccuracies of fictional space adventures, NASA has readily embraced them as a means to promote its human space program. For example, it has touted its role in providing guidance for the Project Hail Mary movie. Said NASA administrator Will Boyington, “Inspiring the next generation, whether through rocket launches or sci-fi movies, helps build the talent and support that underpin American leadership in space.”

More broadly, fictional space travel books, movies, and video games help promulgate a climate in which the promotion of human space exploration by cosmic cheerleaders goes unchallenged. These advocates include self-serving politicians, profit-seeking aerospace corporations, billionaires with space visions, and zealous space travel enthusiasts. This, despite that only 12 percent of respondents in one poll believe that moon missions should be a top priority and only 11 percent believe Mars missions should be.

Some have charged that uncritical media coverage has also played a role in such promotion. For example, NASA administrator Lori Garver wrote in her book Escaping Gravity, “Having a personal interest in supporting space activities as a journalist or reporter on the beat is a pretty standard practice these days. Tweets and promotional videos disguised as ‘documentaries’ about exciting and awe-inspiring space missions and launches are much more common than investigative pieces about how the government is spending the public’s money. As in other niche issue areas, those drawn to careers reporting on specific topics are often also fans. Reporters who attempt more rigorous analysis do so at the risk of retaliation.”

As daring and dramatic as was the Artemis II mission, it constitutes only the barest beginning of plans to send humans into deep space and to the moon and Mars. To chart a safe, productive future for those endeavors will require a realistic understanding of the formidable challenges of human space travel.

Dennis Meredith is the author of Earthbound: The Obstacles to Human Space Exploration and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence. His latest fictional science novel is Angelians.