This article originally appeared at Geo. Translated by Svetlana Kyrzhaly and Rhod Mackenzie

Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryazansky has much in common with the main protagonist of the movie "The Martian", Mark Watney, a botanist played by actor Matt Damon. Ryazansky also became a cosmonaut after studying at the faculty of biology at Moscow State University - the first graduate to go into space. In the movie, circumstances force Watney to fight for his life on Mars. Ryazansky commanded the "Mars-500" mission that simulated a mission to Mars on Earth.

We viewed "The Martian" together with Sergei and asked him how the events on the screen compare with real space flight.

1. Mark Watney takes care of a puncture wound from an antenna himself

Sergei Ryazansky: The most frequent injuries for cosmonauts are eye injuries. In a weightless environment everything floats. In the film, parts of the spacecraft whirl around his helmet, a very common situation: you’re floating around the station, eyes wide open, and suddenly something hits you: a crumb, or little washer, or a nut.

Once, I woke up and tried to open my eyes – but only one opened. I went to see the commander and asked: "What’s wrong with my eye?" Pus had covered my lashes and closed it up. It had some debris in it, that caused an inflammation. I had to wash and treat it on board for a week.

There were much more serious situations than that, but the station has a very well thought-out medical system. Equipped with an ultrasound machine, there was even a dental drill on the now abandoned "Mir" station, as well as a stethoscope and an instrument for examining the back of the eye. We could transmit images down to Earth and mission control would then work out the problem. For example, you would do an ultrasound, send the image to Earth and doctors would answer: “You’re looking for a kidney in the wrong place, that’s the heart there.”

I and the commander of the crew even replaced our own dental fillings, which had fallen out during the flight for each other at a time when we had three months of flight still ahead of us. You could complain to mission control and say “Get me off the station!” but that would jeopardize the whole expedition. At first, the fillings we inserted fell out again, but finally we got the hang of it.

2.Repairing a space suit using adhesive tape

S.R.: We did a live broadcast from the International Space Station with Moscow University, followed by an hour of Q&A. They asked: "Do you have such a thing as adhesive tape on the station? I said “What would we do without it?” The tape used in the movie to repair a habitat module and seal a cracked helmet is American, gray duct tape, an absolutely essential item and believe me there are huge supplies of it on board the station.

Many materials are used in different ways than originally intended. For example, food packaging is similar to a felt mattress, and cosmonauts use it as acoustic insulation. It’s rather noisy up there. At night, if someone goes to the toilet, the cleaning systems activate around the whole station. The felt is used to cover all sorts of noisy equipment, Soviet-style, that’s our way. Karen Nyberg, who flew with me, made dinosaur cut outs from them for her child.

3. Mark Watney digs an old Pathfinder Rover out of the sand, while a team on Earth works with an exact replica

S.R.: An exact copy of the Russian segment of the station is located at the Rocket and Space Corporation "Energia". If an unexpected problem appears on board, they go to the replica, switch everything on and it’s really the same thing, except for weightlessness. Then they figure out what they can do. There’s also a replica submerged in water to simulate weightlessness.

Once, we had a situation on the station where half of it was powered down. Ammonia was leaking from a radiator, putting the entire mission in jeopardy. Mission control told us: "Guys, go to bed". And just as in the movie, meanwhile they were working with the replica to come up with a solution. Cosmonauts who had flown and carried out repairs before were summoned from their vacations, brought back from everywhere. While we slept, they dove into the water, planned a spacewalk in the pool and the next morning, we received a file with instructions on what to do.

4.Mark Watney communicates with Houston

S.R.: Actually, internet communication only appeared on the station recently. There is e-mail, it’s included in the main channel with the rest of the Internet operating system. To prevent a hacker from spoiling something, computers with Internet connections are not part of the main network, but use an additional channel. Its speed reminds me of the modem I used as a student.

We experienced the Sochi Olympics through a transcript of the action on the website Sport-Express. Of course, the whole crew really wanted to follow the match between Russia and the United States…

The Odnoklassniki social media website took five and a half minutes to load. One day I went online and suddenly saw that my friend, who had gone on an expedition to the South Pole at the time, was online. “Slava, are you back? How was the South Pole? He responded: “Actually, I’m still sitting in my radio room at the South Pole. What are you doing here on Earth? Shouldn’t you be in space?" - " I am".

5.Watney describes the spaceship "Hermes", that goes on a rescue flight

S.R.: Their spaceship is very similar to the International Space Station. They didn’t copy a real life module but in general it’s similar. Our station also looks like a long sausage with spikes sticking out in different directions. However, you can’t float around from one end to the other without touching the walls because the "sausage" has a bend in the middle, where it transitions from the Russian module to the American one. Basically, you can see into the American segment through a gap, and the commanders can see each other without having to open the hatch - since they must always be prepared.

There is also more room on "Hermes" then on the station. You wouldn’t be able to hang out in the middle of the Russian segment, reaching for a wall without touching. The workspace is lined with panels, behind which are all sorts of useful devices, storage space or the crew cabins. In general there is a narrow tunnel running down the center.

In the US segment and the Japanese module, a person can safely hang suspended, not touching or able to touch any wall, until the flow of air moves him. Because of that, we often talk with our families in the Japanese module, where you can do somersaults and show our children what weightlessness looks like. And they can see that the station is beautiful and spacious.

Why these differences? The US modules were brought into space using shuttles with their huge cargo bay. while ours used a rocket and had to be transported to Baikonur by rail. The maximum diameter was limited by the size of any bridges or tunnels the train had to pass along the way. Recently, I heard that new modules are being developed without having to take this limitation into account.

6. Floating around "Hermes" and cosmonauts fears

S.R.: I was amazed at how well the biomechanics of movement in a weightless environment were imitated in "The Martian". The posture, with legs slightly bent, comes from sky diving. When you fall with a parachute before it’s deployed, hands must remain relaxed in the air stream, legs raised up and relaxed. Any tension in your limbs will set you twirling instantly, just like a propeller. The parachute will wind around the body and it will end badly.

Skydiving is part of a cosmonaut’s training, the better to cope with fear. A person that’s not afraid of anything is a suitable client for a psychiatrist and doesn’t qualify as a cosmonaut. A normal person is afraid and nervous under normal circumstances. Put simply, where split-seconds count, one must be able to exhale, relax and continue.

About the book "The Martian" by Andy Weir, which the movie was based on:

S.R.: I understand that the author of "The Martian" is not an expert on space flight. But you have to give him credit for an amazing book. Neither the movie nor the book contains obvious mistakes. Unlike "Gravity" for example, where a fire extinguisher is used for flight and gets the director and writer an F in physics.

It’s a pity that the ideological component of the story was very limited in the movie because the book is not about endless space, but about using a scientific approach to survive and the awesome power of the human spirit. The book conveys the hero’s bouts of panic, where he doesn’t know what to do. This is normal, but the movie doesn’t show it.