Sacrifice In The Martian By Andy Weir
Sep 27, 2017 768 Words 4 Pages
Rescuing Mark Watney - The Martian, Humanities 10
In our society today, the moral usually believes in “The needs of the many outweigh the need of one”. In some situations, there are dilemmas that we have to make sacrifices in order to solve the issue; our moral would tend choose the happiness of the many over the sacrifices of the few, thus, the least would be sacrificed for the happiness of the majority. However, in the book The Martian by Andy Weir, the idea is communicated in a different way. Instead of scarfing for the needs of the few, the many are making considerable sacrifices for the good of the few. If anything, the author intends to tell us that being altruistic and sacrificing our own happiness for the sake of helping others is the basic nature of human.
Many were involved in the mission of rescuing Mark; NASA engineers were the main work force that contributes to the rescue plan, but they could not have gone so far without the assistances of the Chinese engineers, who also made a lot of generous contributions as well. After NASA’s initial plan of saving Mark end up in failure, China made the decision of assisting NASA by providing their own probe in order to make the rescue plan possible; in return, China asked NASA to send a Chinese astronaut on Mars for the next ares mission. The action that China was making may sound like a means to an end at the beginning; but after knowing the sacrifices that the Chinese engineers are making, what they are doing really indicated that each human being has the instinct of helping each other out. “‘I spent years working on Taiyang Shen,’ he said. ‘So did countless other researchers, scientists, and engineers. Everyone poured their souls into construction…And now it’s sitting in a warehouse. It'll never fly,” (Weir, 254). Just like scientist and engineers from NASA, the Chinese scientists engineers also worked countless hours into making their dreams come true. The love, the sacrifices, the blood and tears, all for a short moment of igniting, boosting, and roaring into the sky. It is painful for everyone knowing that their rocket would never fly; however, when they know that their work would be used for a rescue mission to save someone, the desire of helping others becomes irresistible.
The idea of “The need of the few outweigh the needs of the many” is communicated as the story progresses; this time, all five crew members of the Ares 3 mission are daring to risk their own lives to rescue their friend. Before the start of the rescue mission, each of the five crew members got in contact with their family members on Earth. Until this moment, we finally have a deeper understanding the lives of the five crew members, as well as their relatives and friends. “‘Hey, Melissa…,’ said Robert. ‘Am I getting through? Can you see me?’ … ‘Wow! Good find!’ ‘I know right!?’ (Weir, 245). As we started to have a closer approach to the lives of these five crew members, we came to the realization that they are not just crew mates of Mark Watney, but people with lives and families. Knowing that Mark is stranded, every crew member is altruistic enough to take life-threatening risks to save their precious friend. Such decision requires insane bravery; prolonging the time that they spend in space hugely boosts the chances of dying, and if the probe launch ends up in failure, everyone would die in the end. Yet, when one calls for help when he is in danger, everyone responds; it almost feels like that being altruistic is hard-wired into our DNAs.
Mark Watney’s rescuing mission continues. In the few months of preparation, some invested tens of thousands of dollars into the rescue mission, some worked countless overtime hours and efforts, some even took live-threatening risks, and some sacrificed their future dreams and goals. A considerable amount of work has been done to rescue Mark; true, the work is costly, the work is tiring, but people made their maximum contributions with minimum complaints. Although many may argue, “Does Mark’s survival really outweigh the work that has been put into the rescue mission?” Logically, the idea is wrong since our moral tends to believe the happiness of the many means the all, we don't usually pay much attention to the sacrifices of the few. However, we are humans, and humans do not think logically at all times. We have emotions, which allow us to react experiences, and respond to others’ helps when they asked for.
In our society today, the moral usually believes in “The needs of the many outweigh the need of one”. In some situations, there are dilemmas that we have to make sacrifices in order to solve the issue; our moral would tend choose the happiness of the many over the sacrifices of the few, thus, the least would be sacrificed for the happiness of the majority. However, in the book The Martian by Andy Weir, the idea is communicated in a different way. Instead of scarfing for the needs of the few, the many are making considerable sacrifices for the good of the few. If anything, the author intends to tell us that being altruistic and sacrificing our own happiness for the sake of helping others is the basic nature of human.
Many were involved in the mission of rescuing Mark; NASA engineers were the main work force that contributes to the rescue plan, but they could not have gone so far without the assistances of the Chinese engineers, who also made a lot of generous contributions as well. After NASA’s initial plan of saving Mark end up in failure, China made the decision of assisting NASA by providing their own probe in order to make the rescue plan possible; in return, China asked NASA to send a Chinese astronaut on Mars for the next ares mission. The action that China was making may sound like a means to an end at the beginning; but after knowing the sacrifices that the Chinese engineers are making, what they are doing really indicated that each human being has the instinct of helping each other out. “‘I spent years working on Taiyang Shen,’ he said. ‘So did countless other researchers, scientists, and engineers. Everyone poured their souls into construction…And now it’s sitting in a warehouse. It'll never fly,” (Weir, 254). Just like scientist and engineers from NASA, the Chinese scientists engineers also worked countless hours into making their dreams come true. The love, the sacrifices, the blood and tears, all for a short moment of igniting, boosting, and roaring into the sky. It is painful for everyone knowing that their rocket would never fly; however, when they know that their work would be used for a rescue mission to save someone, the desire of helping others becomes irresistible.
The idea of “The need of the few outweigh the needs of the many” is communicated as the story progresses; this time, all five crew members of the Ares 3 mission are daring to risk their own lives to rescue their friend. Before the start of the rescue mission, each of the five crew members got in contact with their family members on Earth. Until this moment, we finally have a deeper understanding the lives of the five crew members, as well as their relatives and friends. “‘Hey, Melissa…,’ said Robert. ‘Am I getting through? Can you see me?’ … ‘Wow! Good find!’ ‘I know right!?’ (Weir, 245). As we started to have a closer approach to the lives of these five crew members, we came to the realization that they are not just crew mates of Mark Watney, but people with lives and families. Knowing that Mark is stranded, every crew member is altruistic enough to take life-threatening risks to save their precious friend. Such decision requires insane bravery; prolonging the time that they spend in space hugely boosts the chances of dying, and if the probe launch ends up in failure, everyone would die in the end. Yet, when one calls for help when he is in danger, everyone responds; it almost feels like that being altruistic is hard-wired into our DNAs.
Mark Watney’s rescuing mission continues. In the few months of preparation, some invested tens of thousands of dollars into the rescue mission, some worked countless overtime hours and efforts, some even took live-threatening risks, and some sacrificed their future dreams and goals. A considerable amount of work has been done to rescue Mark; true, the work is costly, the work is tiring, but people made their maximum contributions with minimum complaints. Although many may argue, “Does Mark’s survival really outweigh the work that has been put into the rescue mission?” Logically, the idea is wrong since our moral tends to believe the happiness of the many means the all, we don't usually pay much attention to the sacrifices of the few. However, we are humans, and humans do not think logically at all times. We have emotions, which allow us to react experiences, and respond to others’ helps when they asked for.
