Here’s How Ridley Scott Launched A Page From His Matt Damon Sci-Fi Epic ‘The Martian’ Into Space

Andy Weir’s self-published debut novel, The Martian, has had an interesting journey. Weir — a computer programmer — began working on the story of a man who must use his scientific know-how to get off Mars back in 2009. The self-professed nerd studied actual NASA data, and imbued the tale with as much realism (i.e. orbital paths, satellite images, etc.) as possible.

Having previously been denied any kind of attention from publishers and agents, Weir decided to publish the story on his website in 2012. Garnering interest, fans of the work asked if he could put it on Amazon for use on e-reading devices, so Weir did just that, asking only the minimal .99 for the purchase. Within three months, The Martian rose to the top of Amazon’s sci-fi fiction list.

Suddenly, publishers were salivating at the mouth to publish the book in hardback. In 2013, within weeks of each other, Crown Publishing offered Weir a hefty six figure check for the rights to The Martian, and Fox followed up by winning the film rights. At this moment, Ridley Scott is filming the movie adaptation of Weir’s novel with an all-star cast, with Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, and Kristin Wiig leading the mission to Mars.

The journey from e-book to movie is quite interesting, but earlier this month, The Martian embarked on another fascinating trip: it actually made it to space

Working with NASA, Ridley Scott was actually able to convince the astronauts on December 5th’s Orion flight — an orbital mission almost 6,000 miles above the earth’s surface — to take this cover page of The Martian script into flight with them:

That’s Scott’s own depiction of Matt Damon as the lead character in the film. Congrats, Damon — you made it to outer space. Let’s see Affleck do that.

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