Potato experts say the science in The Martian checks out
It’s rare that the world’s potato scientists get a chance to weigh in on a pop culture item, since their favorite little tuber rarely plays a role in Game Of Thrones or a superhero movie. They must’ve been pretty excited, then, when they saw Ridley Scott’s 2015 film The Martian, a significant chunk of which revolves around Matt Damon’s quest to grow potatoes while stranded on Mars. Naturally, the International Potato Center jumped at the chance to study whether or not potatoes would actually grow on Mars, and now a story in Discover Magazine (via Uproxx) explains their findings. So was The Martian scientifically accurate, specifically regarding its depiction of potatoes? More or less!