Was a supercomputer really needed in "The Martian"?
In "The Martian", Rich Parnell uses a supercomputer to calculate a life saving slingshot trajectory that allows Watney to be saved.
The entire film is renowned for its scientific care, so I was really surprised at this. The Hermes is travelling between Earth and Mars, so even allowing for an extended journey and slingshot, there are very few bodies that are materially relevant to its journey. The time scale is short by cosmology standards. Flight and delta-v calculations don't seem like they need supercomputing capability for something like this, as the calculations just don't seem complex enough to need that level of resources. The main question would be risk evaluation (excess fuel, risk of incidents) not trajectory calculations or simple flight viability.
Would a calculation like this really have needed a supercomputer? It seems like something that wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to be calculable on a much more mundane computer.
Hard science answers appreciated! It won't spoil the film to be told if this was a minor exaggeration for effect, or to learn it's actually a lot harder in real life than it seems!
Best Answer
The consensus on Space Exploration.SE where this same question was asked is...
NO
Well, developing low-thrust trajectories does take more computation than impulsive trajectories (e.g. like Voyager, which was done with rather primitive computers). You have no choice but to run many fully integrated trajectories. However it would not take a supercomputer of the future, or even a supercomputer of the present to search for and find trajectories like that.
In fact, Andy Weir used his home computer (whatever that was, but likely not even a small cluster) to find and check his trajectories.
Answer by DuffBeerBaron
The short answer is no, the calculations do not require a supercomputer. Any modern laptop has the computing power to handle the scenario.
The long answer is that the particular orbit depicted in the movie is what's called a Planetary Cycler, which cycles between two bodies (Earth/Mars). You can use gravity assists at each body to put your spacecraft on a return trajectory to the other body. These gravity assists can be augmented with maneuvers as needed.
BUT YES
Answer by Loren Pechtel
Calculating an energy-optimal orbit for a simple thing like Earth->Mars is no big deal. Even using low-thrust engines doesn't add much to it. It would be tedious but you could do it on a calculator.
However, that's not what they needed in the book & movie. The objective wasn't to get there as cheap as possible, the objective was to get there as fast as possible given the available energy. There's no standard solution for this, you're simply going to have to try a huge range of possible orbits and see what's best. That's why you want a supercomputer.
Modern deep space craft often use paths that take some pretty extreme calculating. Consider Messenger: 6 planetary encounters and 5 deep space burns. They obviously simulated a huge number of possible paths to find the one that got them there the cheapest.
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