For chrissy Spocky got me a copy of Andy Weir’s The Hail Mary Project.
I really liked it. It’s fairly hard-sci-fi with a fair bit of science in it, and overall a pretty reasonable story. The main character, Ryland Grace, is much the same person as Mark Watney from his other book, The Martian though. Mostly just a name change but it works pretty well indeed.
I’ll just copy the story from Wikipedia as I hate typing.
The main story takes place on the Hail Mary spacecraft and is intercut with flashbacks. This summary is in chronological order.
In the near future, scientists observe the Sun dimming coinciding with the formation of a bright infrared line from the Sun to Venus. As the dimming will cause a catastrophic ice age within 30 years, the world’s governments appoint former European Space Agency administrator Eva Stratt to lead a task force to solve the problem. A space probe, sent to investigate Venus, discovers alien microbes were generating the light.
Stratt appoints Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher and infamous former molecular biologist, to study a sample of microbes. He discovers that the single-celled organism consumes electromagnetic radiation, naming it “Astrophage.” After his discovery, Stratt sends him back to his job, but he insists on coming back to continue his research on Astrophage after considering his students’ futures. He determines that Astrophage breed by absorbing energy from the Sun and carbon dioxide from Venus.
Astrophage has also infected and dimmed nearby stars; one star, Tau Ceti, has resisted the infection. Other scientists design an engine that uses Astrophage as rocket fuel. An Astrophage-fueled starship, the Hail Mary, is created to travel to Tau Ceti to investigate its Astrophage resistance. There is only enough time to breed enough Astrophage for a one-way trip, so the mission will return its findings to Earth using unmanned mini-ships called “beetles.” Grace trains the science experts for the mission, but they are killed in an accident shortly before launch. With no time to train a comparably-skilled replacement, Stratt forces an unwilling Grace to join the suicide mission. Grace threatens sabotage, so a sedative is administered to him before launch, along with a temporary amnesia-inducing drug.
Years later, Ryland Grace emerges from his coma aboard the Hail Mary with no memory of his identity or situation. Grace finds that his crew members have died en route and gives them a space burial. Hail Mary reaches Tau Ceti and is approached by an alien starship, which Grace names “Blip-A.” The other ship indicates, via a star-map sculpture, that it came from 40 Eridani. The ships dock, and Grace develops a system to communicate with the eyeless, spider-like five-legged alien, whom he names “Rocky.” Rocky, a skilled engineer, has been in the Tau Ceti system for 46 Earth-years and is the last survivor of his crew, with the rest having died of radiation sickness. As Eridani is also under threat from Astrophage, Grace and Rocky agree to co-operate.
Grace learns that the Eridians did not know about relativity and Blip-A has more than enough Astrophage fuel for both ships to return to their planets. Grace and Rocky discover that one of Tau Ceti’s planets is Astrophage’s home planet, where some force is keeping the Astrophage population in check. The planet’s atmosphere is hypothesized to contain a natural predator of Astrophage. Grace and Rocky construct a 10-kilometer chain made of xenonite, an Eridian super-material, in order to collect a sample. During collection, a hull breach occurs; Grace and Rocky risk their lives to save each other. From the sample, they identify the predator and name it “Taumoeba.”
Grace and Rocky use selective breeding to produce Taumoeba that can survive on Venus and Eridani’s analogue. Rocky repairs and refuels the Hail Mary and they part ways. En route to Earth, Grace discovers that he has accidentally bred into the Taumoeba the ability to penetrate their xenonite containers. Although Grace fixes the problem on Hail Mary, he realizes that the Blip-A is made almost entirely of xenonite and that the Taumoeba would have consumed Blip-A’s Astrophage fuel, leaving Rocky stranded.
Grace is forced to choose between returning to Earth but dooming the Eridians, or saving the Eridians while facing his own starvation on Erid, where the food is toxic to humans. Grace sends the beetles back to Earth with Taumoeba farms and instructions to save the Sun. Grace locates the Blip-A and rescues Rocky. Rocky is overjoyed and points out the possibility that Grace could consume Taumoeba, giving him a chance at survival.
Sixteen years later, Grace is living on Erid, now rid of its Astrophage infection. Using a digital archive of human knowledge, the Eridians have built Grace a comfortable environment and synthetic food. Rocky tells Grace that Earth’s Sun has returned to its original luminance, meaning Grace’s mission was a success. Knowing that humanity has survived on Earth, Grace contemplates returning to his home planet before returning to work teaching a classroom of young Eridians about science.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing the movie.
