For Matt Damon movie 'The Martian,' lots of research -- and a watery coincidence - Los Angeles Times

When Ridley Scott was making "The Martian," the new science-heavy film that has Matt Damon stranded on Mars, he did what few film directors ever get the chance to do: he called NASA.

At the other end of the line, after a few relays, was James L. Green, the director of the space agency’s suitably important-sounding Planetary Science Division. Over several teleconferences, Green guided Scott and his team through the current scholarship, ensuring that the science for the film about Damon's astronaut-botanist Mark Watney would be as correct--and the designs as accurate--as knowably possible.

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