Hollywood is hoping for a blockbuster opening weekend of the sci-fi thriller “The Martian.” But the film is drumming up public interest in NASA’s lofty Mars missions, too.

Public support is seen as crucial to the agency as it works to make good on a promise to send humans to the red planet within 20 years. As excitement regarding the potential to travel to, land, and possibly even live on Mars grows, scientists say it could prop up NASA’s missions and help secure ongoing funding.

This week, a number of scientists heralded the film’s factual accuracy, NASA announced a breakthrough discovery regarding flowing water on the red planet, and a rare blood moon on Sunday attracted a significant amount of attention on social media sites.

The momentum has set the film up for a solid opening weekend, with Fandango reporting that pre-sales for “The Martian” are exceeding those of the 2013 sci-fi thriller “Gravity.” Box office tracking company BoxOffice.com estimates the film will rake in $56 million this weekend.

“ “It is easy to imagine that the cost of reaching Mars, while high, could be invaluable to us in the future.” ” — Chris Russell, UCLA Space Physics Center

The realism of this film, and other recent sci-fi movies such as “Interstellar” and “Gravity,” are fueling the excitement.

“I am in favor of movies that realistically portray the cost and dangers,” said Chris Russell, head of the Space Physics Center at UCLA. “It is easy to imagine that the cost of reaching Mars, while high, could be invaluable to us in the future if we were able to create a sustainable colony.”

“The Martian” won’t be filled with “Star Trek” inventions such as warp drive, phasers and torpedoes, but real technology that is either developed, in the process of being developed or will be developed within the next decade, said Jim Bell, a professor at Arizona State University.

“That’ll maybe excite the public the most,” said Bell, who has been heavily involved in NASA’s solar system exploration missions, including those involving Mars rover Curiosity. “It’s not ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Star Trek.’ This is something we can do in the near future.”

While the Andy Weir book “The Martian,” on which the film is based, estimates that Mars mission could cost in the “hundreds of millions of dollars,” scientists think it could be more affordable. Since the e-book was published in 2011, NASA has made significant investments in technology—such as the rockets needed to propel humans to Mars—that could make a mission much more affordable than is portrayed in the movie, according to Bell.

“There actually is an affordable path to Mars in the 2030s without having to increase the NASA budget,” Bell said. “All we have to have is constant support.”

“ “All we have to have is constant support.” ” — Jim Bell, Planetary Society

The Planetary Society, an organization dedicated to space education and advocacy, which Bell oversees, believes the most affordable way to do this is through missions conducted in stages, similar to the way the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo missions served as precursors to Apollo 11’s moon landing.

As for the potential toll on human life, often portrayed in Hollywood sci-fi films of space exploration, it is seen as a risk necessary if NASA is ever to move past sending unmanned rovers to Mars, said Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science and physics at MIT.

“Hollywood needs a human emotion story, or the movie would be ultra tedious,” she said. “The harsh reality is that we have to be willing to risk human lives, and get used to it, if we want to visit Mars or even settle Mars in the future.”

But as Hollywood works closer with scientists to make their space expedition portrayals more realistic—popular astrophysicist and “Cosmos” host Neil deGrasse Tyson was at “The Martian” premiere on Wednesday, which coincided with NASA’s water announcement—and as popular tech entrepreneurs such as Tesla Motors TSLA, -5.59% and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk increase private investment in space travel, a human mission to Mars seems increasingly feasible.

“There’s no better place to go to understand our own origins in our own solar system,” said Bell. “But it’s going to take scores of people to do that, just like it takes scores of people to discover our own planet.”