The Martian: 8 Ways It Shows Hollywood How To Do Science Right

They probably didn't plan it, but the film's release really couldn't have come at a better time. It was a hell of a PR week for Mars.

Coinciding perfectly with NASA's announcement that they have discovered running water on Mars, the combined impact of the two is probably more than the sum of its parts.

In an age of austerity, space exploration has become regarded by many as a luxury that we simply can't afford. Whilst they may be right that feeding our population is perhaps more important that sending people to Mars, with this attitude we risk damaging our sense of adventure and thirst for knowledge in a way that might be difficult to recover.

It is all too easy in times like these to turn our backs on the sky and become an inward looking species, just as we were managing to explore beyond the bounds of our planet.

Even if a rekindling of our excitement about science and exploration is only in the mind for the moment, keeping it alive until with have the resources is probably doing more good than we could know at the moment.