&gt; my biggest issue re: the Martian comes when you read (for a contrived comparison) the Apollo 13 transcripts. As much a life or death situation as anything that happened in The Martian, far less of my wanting to throw the &quot;protaganist&quot; out a window for being a nonstop firehose of bad quips and one liners.<p>The Apollo 13 crisis lasted a week; even then, the transcripts do contain quite a few &quot;bad quips and one-liners&quot;.  Look at page 14-16 of <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jsc.nasa.gov&#x2F;history&#x2F;mission_trans&#x2F;AS13_CM.PDF" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jsc.nasa.gov&#x2F;history&#x2F;mission_trans&#x2F;AS13_CM.PDF</a> for jokes between the crew just 30 minutes into the mission.