Stranded

It's 298 days since the first man mission to Mars

left the Alpha International Space Station.

The spaceship areas and a crew of seven men and women

from different nations are now going into orbit

around the red planet.

To make the journey with the minimum energy requirement

after overcoming the Earth's gravitational velocity,

the ship was obliged to enter into an elliptical orbit

around the sun, known to engineers

as Hohmann's trajectory.

The enigmatic red planet is home to many mysteries.

In 1999 the Mars Global Surveyor failed

to detect a global gravitational field around Mars,

but did find dozens of local fields

and strange gravitational anomalies.

I'm told that we have some exclusive comments from Andre

Vishniac, the cabin to the mission from Mars

received just a few seconds ago on broadcast to Earth.

This is a historic moment.

Captain, how do you feel at a time like this?

I mean, you're flying over Mars, one of ancient humanity's

dreams come true.

But it was a difficult dream to achieve.

This is our job and we've

been trained to do it.

We can't worry about other factors.

Man landed on the moon more than 50 years ago.

The next and obvious step was Mars,

but it took longer than expected.

Why Mars?

I mean, what do you expect to find there?

There is no easy answer to that question

why does man explore at all?

To learn and to know more, to prove

to ourself that we can achieve goal that

seemed impossible to reach.

Susana, you ready?

Yes, I am.

Herb?

Yeah, I'm ready.

Aries.

This is Bellows.

I am the voice checker.

Over.

Arie, this is the pilot.

Voice check, over.

Aries?

This is Herbert.

Voice check, over.

Son, count down to

- 4, 3, 2 1. - Ignition.

It was like coming back from the dead, confusion

and darkness reigned.

Do you hear me, Bellow?

Bellow, do you read me?

Can someone answer?

Bellow, do you read me?

We hear you, Lowell. We've crashed.

Is everyone OK?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm OK.

But it's-- it's pretty crazy here.

It's--

Is everyone all right?

The crash was awful.

I don't know.

Hey, hey hey, hey.

Are you all right?

Are you OK?

Get some rest, don't worry.

Get some rest, OK?

We're alive.

Jesus, it's amazing.

We're alive, we did it.

Come on, Janet, we did it.

Hey, we're alive.

Hey guys, is everybody OK down there?

I'm all right.

Are you sure Johnson?

Yeah, I'm all right.

Come on, buddy, we did it.

Vishniac, you OK?

Vishniac?

Vishniac, answer me.

You OK?

Vishniac?

Jenny?

Jenny?

I don't know.

His neck is broken.

God bless his soul.

If anyone ever finds this tape

I want them to record the facts exactly as they occurred.

The crash was terrible, but the bellows

cockpit miraculously survived.

Our captain Andre Vishniac died on impact.

The five surviving members were soon

enforced to confront the harsh reality of our situation.

What lay ahead wasn't going to be easy.

- I - can't see anything.

Christ, what a disaster.

We'll never be able to restore pressure in the hangar,

and the rover's a wreck.

We discovered the failure.

For a few seconds all systems were shut.

Down with only a moment it was enough to fool

the flight computer.

What caused it?

No way of knowing from here.

You're gonna have to look in your database.

I wish there was something I could do to help you.

Uh, everyone could be looking for ways

to get you out of this. - Right.

Thanks, Lowell.

We'll talk later on.

We need more room.

This is too suffocating.

Now Sanchez, you're second in command.

With Vishniac dead you're in charge of the mission.

What do you suggest?

All I wanted was to be somewhere

else a million miles away.

First order from your new captain,

you can all lie down and wait.

Wait?

Wait for what?

You don't want to know, Fidel.

Hey, I totally refuse

to accept that possibility.

Well, you better get used to it, Herb.

There's a ship above our heads right now and it cannot

enter our atmosphere, and there's no

more landing modules on board.

We expected that, Luca.

But they'll send the rescue mission from Earth, won't they?

It's only a matter of staying alive until then.

A rescue mission, do you hear what you're saying?

A rescue mission.

It takes 26 months to send a ship from Earth to Mars.

How are they going to rescue us in 26 months?

If there's one problem with orbit

it'll delay that another year.

I don't understand.

What are you talking about?

A rescue mission.

We all know that the only purpose of that mission

would be to recover our bodies.

Most likely we'll be dead in less than a year.

That's where you're wrong, Jenny.

We're going to survive.

Yes.

How?

The systems in this descent module

were not designed to keep us alive for three years.

We're 191 million kilometers from Earth, and we're alone.

There's always a way to survive.

Any specific ideas?

Yeah.

We must get to work, all of us.

Our mission now is to survive, just

as others have survived before.

By the way, our situation is not as desperate as it

might seem at first glance.

Really?

Not as desperate?

I love this guy.

I love this guy.

You know, I knew what geologist wants.

He went on a trip from one day to Switzerland

and he saw a black cow one day, and he came back to America

and he wrote a big essay on the fact

that all the cows in Switzerland were black.

Really?

You know, I'm a geologist, that's true,

and that's why I know I how to keep

my feet on the ground, Luca.

Yeah, but we are on Mars, Herb,

and we're not gonna find a of palm trees

out there.

You can count on that.

I don't really know what we should do,

but I do know that we all have to find the answers.

Or die trying.

What shall we do about water, for instance?

We know that Mars' atmosphere contains traces of water.

It's only a matter of time.

Oh yeah, sure.

The water problem is solved.

We just have to get used to not drinking

much or breathing much either.

Jenny, would you even consider the idea that we may just

have a chance of surviving?

All right, OK, I'm listening.

What's your plan?

Where do we start?

Precisely as we're doing now, assessing our situation.

Baglioni, we'll need a detailed list of our resources.

Fine.

It's easy.