Just the other day, “The Martian” star Matt Damon, together with director Ridley Scott and author Andy Weir, who wrote the book the movie is based on, took some time off their busy schedule to visit NASA's Mars Mission Control Center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The visit coincided with the release of a new trailer for “The Martian.”

Word has it the trio visited NASA's Mars Mission Control Center to get an idea of what real space exploration is like. Well, also to promote the movie, poised to open on October 2, but let's not dwell too much on this not-so-hidden business agenda of theirs.

Matt Damon isn't just acting, he really is a fan of space exploration

He might have gone there as a simple visitor looking to learn more about space exploration, but, all the same, Matt Damon still found himself answering questions about the movie and his own take on NASA's ongoing efforts to send crews to other planets.

In his interview at the Mars Mission Control Center, which you can find below, the actor confessed to being a space aficionado himself and explained how author Andy Weir wanted the story of astronaut Mark Watney to be a love letter to science above all else.

“The writer of the movie when I first met with him said, 'I see this movie as a love letter to science,' and that's really what I want to make and that's a cool thing to put out into the world right now.”

“Hopefully, the message in a movie like this is one that really kind of galvanizes participation in stuff like this and makes people excited about science,” Matt Damon said.

Mind you, there's actually more science than fiction in “The Martian”

It will be a few good years until NASA or some other space agency lands astronauts on Mars or some other alien planet. Still, the fact of the matter is Ridley Scott's “The Martian” is more grounded in science than some might think.

True, the plot undoubtedly belongs to the realm of fiction, but many of the technologies featured in the movie already exist or at least are in their early stages of development.

Rovers, habitation modules, farming in space, ion propulsion – they're all real and, one day, actual astronauts will rely on them to travel to and set up camp on some distant orb.