INT. NASA - MISSION CONTROL - DAY

Timer Controller said, "...and liftoff of the Iris Supply Probe."

Cheers coursed through the room.

While team members congratulated one another, the Launcher Interface frowned at his station and said, "Getting a little shimmy, Flight."

"Say again?" Mitch replied.

INT. HULL - DAY

A violent shimmy rattled the payload as the craft accelerated. The bolt at the forefront cracked.

EXT. IRIS CRAFT - DAY

As the first stage depleted its fuel, it jettisoned the stage-clamps. As the stage began to fall away from the shimmying craft, it caught hold, swinging unnaturally to the side. The second stage engines ignited.

INT. HULL - DAY

A whoosh sounded and the acceleration shook the craft. The bolt sheared clean off, the payload rocked, and the other four bolts snapped.

Iris slipped from its supports, and slammed into the hull.

INT. NASA - CONTROL ROOM - DAY

Alarms and lights flashed across the consoles. A cacophony of urgent voices from the floor.

"Whoa!" Launcher Interface cried. "Flight, we're getting a large precession!"

Guidance Telemetry Force on Iris at 7 G's said, "Intermittent signal loss."

"Launch, what's happening?" Mitch asked.

"It's spinning on the long axis with a 17
degree precession."

"We've lost readings on the probe, Flight," Comms informed.

Mitch went cold and cursed, "Shit. It shook loose in the bay."

"Loss of signal, Flight," Launcher Interface said.

"L.O.S. here, too," Guidance Telemetry Force stated. "Same here."

The voices went silent. The alarms blared.

"SatCon?" Mitch called after a moment.

"No satellite acquisition of signal," SatCon said.

Mitch looked to the main screen. It went black, with large white letters reading: "L.O.S."

"Flight, US Destroyer Stockton reports
debris falling from sky," Capcom said.

Cameras caught glimpses of debris trails falling from the sky.

Mitch put his head in his hand. "Roger. GC, Flight. Lock the doors."

INT. NASA - VINCENT'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Vincent sat in his office. NASA was eerily silent. He stared into space. A click sounded. He'd been motionless so long, the sensors thought the office was empty and shut off the lights.

Vincent shifted and lights clicked back on.

A chime rang out on his computer. Vincent glances at the screen to see a relayed message from Pathfinder:

WATNEY: "How'd the launch go?"

EXT. SPACE

The somber reds of Mars blazed against the spacescape.

Sol 186

EXT. MARS - DAWN

Mark stood outside. The horizon reflected off his faceplate.

Mark said, "So, um. Commander Lewis. I need you to do something for me. If I die. I need you to check on my parents and my wife. They'll want to hear about my time on Mars first-hand. I'll need you to do that. It won't be easy talking to a couple about their dead son or a widow about her dead husband. It's a lot to ask; that's why I'm asking you. I'm not giving up. Just planning for every outcome. Please tell them I love what I do. And I'm really good at it. And I'm dying for something big and beautiful. And greater than me. Tell them I said I can live with that. And tell Esme that I love her more than she'll ever know."

EXT. CNSA - DAY - HEADQUARTERS IN BEIJING

CHINA NATIONAL SPACE ADMINISTRATION

INT. CNSA - DAY

Teddy and Vincent were on the screen answering questions from reporters.

Vincent said, "...we substituted protein cubes for the standard rations. The thrust of the launch, combined with the simultaneous lateral vibration, liquefied the cubes and created an unbalanced load."

"Why wasn't this accounted for in the inspection phase?" reporter four asked.

"In order to make our launch window, we were forced to accelerate our schedule," Teddy replied.

"You skipped the inspections?"

"Yes."

Another man said in Chinese, "Their astronauts are going to die."

A man and a woman were watching the monitor. The voice belonged to Zhu Tao, Under-Director, CNSA.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Zhu said, handing Guo the brief. "The Taiyang Shen's booster. Our engineers have run the numbers, and it has enough fuel for a Mars injection orbit."

GUO MING, Director, CNSA

"Why hasn't NASA approached us?" Guo asked.

"They don't know," Zhu replied. "Our booster technology is classified."

"So if we do nothing..."

"The world would never know we could have helped."

"Then. Merely for the sake of argument, let's say we decide to help them..."

"We'd be giving up a booster and effectively cancelling Taiyang Shen." Guo considered this, but had already made the decision.

"We need to keep this among scientists. A cooperation between space agencies..."

INT. NASA - TEDDY'S OFFICE - DAY

Teddy listened to the voice on the other end of the phone detail the terms. He closed his eyes and relief washed over him. It took him a moment to realize they were waiting for his answer.

"Yes," Teddy said.

INT. JPL - BULLPEN - DAY

Bruce stood at the white boards, addressing his department heads. He was energized, writing like a madman while he spoke. "All right, thanks to our friends in China, we get one more chance at this. We finished the Iris probe in sixty-three days. Now we get to do it again in twenty-eight..."

INT. NASA - SUPER COMPUTER ROOM - DAY

Rich Purnell stared at the calculations on the screen. He ran the numbers again. As he saw the readout on his screen, he grinned, realizing he was right.

INT. NASA - HALLWAYS - DAY

Rich hurried through the halls, nearly bumping into Esme who followed him as her curiosity was piqued.

INT. NASA - VINCENT'S OFFICE - DAY

Vincent was on the phone. "We're jettisoning any sort of landing system -- the idea is we're only sending rations, so they can crash land on Mars..."

"Wait," the secretary instructed.

Rich barged into to Vincent's office. "You should hang up the phone."

"I'm sorry -- who are you?" Vincent asked.

"My name is Rich Purnell and I work in
astrodynamics and you should hang up the phone right now."

Vincent said into the phone, "I'll call you back." Rich handed Vincent his summary.

INT. NASA - CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY

Annie hurried into the briefing room. Vincent, Rich, Bruce, Esme and Mitch were already there.

Annie was reading the email on her phone. "What the hell is "Project Elrond?""

"I had to make something up," Vincent replied.

""Elrond?""

Mitch came to a realization. "Because it's a secret meeting."

"How do you know that? Why does "Elrond" mean "secret meeting?""

Esme grinned. "Lord of the Rings. Oh, that's perfect. Mark would get a kick out of that."

"The Council of Elrond," Bruce told her. "From Lord of the Rings, like Mrs. Watney said. It's the meeting where they decide to destroy the One Ring."

"I so quit right now."

Teddy entered and said, "If we're calling something Project Elrond, I would like my codename to be "Glorfindel.""

"Oh my god I hate every one of you."

"Teddy doesn't even know what this is about?" Mitch asked.

"Tell them exactly what you told me," Vincent ordered.

"I can get the Hermes back to Mars by Sol 561," Rich said.

"What?" Mitch questioned.

"How?" Teddy and Esme wondered.

Rich looked around and grabbed items off the table to demonstrate. "Okay... let's pretend this stapler is the Hermes. And you are... I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

"Teddy," Teddy answered. "I'm the Director of NASA."

"Okay, Teddy, you're Earth. And right now the Hermes is heading towards you and is about to start its month-long deceleration to intercept. But, instead, I'm proposing..." He demonstrated. "We start accelerating immediately, to preserve velocity and gain even more. We don't intercept Earth at all, but we come close enough to use a gravity assist to adjust course. While we're doing that..." He grabbee the pen out of Teddy's pocket. We resupply with the probe-"

"The Taiyeng Shen," Vincent stated.

"Pick up whatever provisions we need...
and then we're accelerating towards Mars." He said to Annie, "You're Mars. And we're going too fast at this point to fall into orbit, so it's a flyby."

"What good is a flyby if we can't get
Watney off the surface?" Bruce asked.

"Watney would have to intercept using the MAV," Vincent replied as he demonstrated, blasting his pen off of Annie's shoulder.

Rich caught it, and pointed everything back towards Teddy. "And we head back home. I've done the math. It checks out."

The group sat in stunned silence.

Teddy was the first one to grasp the full magnitude of what they'd just proposed. He locked eyes with Vincent and said, "Rich?"

"Yes sir?"

"Get out." Once Rich he left the room, Teddy asked, "Is he right?"

"I believe so," Vincent replied.

"And we need to use the Taiyeng Shen?"

"What am I missing?" Annie asked. "Why is that important?"

"Because we can only do one," Vincent answered.

"Send Watney enough food to last until Ares 4, or send Hermes back to get him right now," Teddy ordered.

Vincent nodded. "Both plans require the Taiyang Shen, so we have to choose."

"What about the Hermes crew?" Annie wondered. "We'd be asking them to add..." she did the math, "533 days to their mission."

"They wouldn't hesitate," Mitch said. "Not for a second. That's why Vincent called this meeting. He wants us to decide instead." Vincent nodded. "Bullshit. It should be Commander Lewis' call."

"It's a matter of life and death, Mitch," Vincent told him. "We need to make this decision."

"She's the Mission Commander. Life and death decisions are her damn job. And you know Esme would do anything to get her husband back."

"Can the Hermes function for 533 days
beyond the scheduled mission end?" Teddy asked.

"It should. The Hermes was made to do all five Ares missions, so it's only halfway through lifespan."

"But if something went wrong..." Annie trailed.

"We would lose the crew. And the Ares
Program with them."

"So... what? We either have a high chance of killing one person, or a low chance of killing six people," Bruce said. "How do we make that decision?"

"We don't," Vincent replied. "Teddy does."

All eyes turned to Teddy. The room sat in silence. Teddy thought for a long time then said, "We still have the chance to bring five astronauts home safe and sound. I'm not risking their lives."

"Let them make that decision," Mitch told him.

"Mitch. We're going with option one."

Mitch and Esme stared at Teddy, quietly seething. "You goddamn coward."

Esme's fist balled and she left the room before she could hurt anyone or anything. As soon as she was alone, tears fell down her face and she began quietly sobbing.

EXT. HAB - DAY/DUSK

Mark trudged out of the airlock and went about their routine. He walked over to the solar panels, started to scrub them for, what seemed like the thousandth time, and stopped.

He couldn't do it anymore. He stared at them for a long time before dropping the brushes.

He walked to the top of the hill and sat. He closed his eyes.

LATER

Mark hadn't moved. The sun was beginning to set. The temperature alarms on his suit was beginning to blare, warning him that it was getting colder by the minute.

Mark overrode the alarm and sat in silence. As he glanced back towards the setting sun, something metallic glinted in the dust beneath him.

He got up. He walked towards it. It was Vogel's specimen drill that had been dropped when the storm hit. Mark looked around and saw the holes drilled in the rock formation.

His fingers traced the unfinished work. He picked up the drill. Maybe he would see his wife again.