“I’m not on earth.”
One man wakes up alone in space with no memory of who he is or how he got there. This is the premise of Andy Weir’s latest optimistic, sarcastic, briskly-paced science fiction novel Project Hail Mary. I thought this was a remarkable story crammed full of hard science but delivered an accessible manner with a degree of comedic distance so that the technical jargon doesn’t go over the reader’s head. As the novel steadily unfurls, we learn through a series of flashbacks that the protagonist is Ryland Grace, a renegade academic from San Francisco (with a PhD in molecular biology) and junior high school science teacher, who has been co-opted by an international body of scientists for a top-secret mission due to his controversial research doubting the Goldilocks Zone and that liquid water is required for life to evolve.
The central issue at stake in Project Hail Mary is that the sun appears to be dying, threatening the extermination of all life on earth with mass starvation and crop failure before unleashing a new global ice age. The situation is dire and it forces humanity into a “lifeboat ethics” situation in which the United States, Russia, and China must all unite with their best scientists to solve this crisis. Why is the sun dying? As it turns out, a microscopic pathogen (or “space algae”) dubbed “astrophage” is causing exponential loss of the sun’s solar output thanks to the “Petrova Line” of absorbed sunlight on Venus. A small sample of astrophage is retrieved and brought back to earth from an unmanned probe to Venus and a select group of scientists have been allowed to conduct experiments on it. Amazingly, Ryland Grace is selected for the project and he manages to figure out how to breed astrophage (apparently, they travel to stars to reproduce) and this leads to all sorts of theories and speculations as to what this might mean. Astronomers soon discover that astrophage has been spreading from star to star throughout the universe.
Eventually, a manned mission called “Project Hail Mary” is organized to save humanity. The plan? To conduct a “suicide mission” to the distant Tau Ceti system in order to discover why the star Tau Ceti is not dying like many other stars. Why hasn’t astrophage affected Tau Ceti? Shortly before “Project Hail Mary” launches, two of its key members die in an accidental explosion and Ryland Grace is forced against his wishes aboard the ship (where the three astronauts are placed in a multi-year coma to make the journey to Tau Ceti). The huge ship has been constructed like a centrifuge using reproducible astrophage as fuel.
Thus, when he awakens in deep space, surrounded by tubes and computers (with his two compatriots dead in their coma beds), Ryland Grace slowly realizes he has been placed in an incredibly perilous situation. Luckily, he is a brilliant scientist and mathematician (and his snide blend of sarcasm helps him overcome any number of difficult moments). Completely alone, lightyears away from any other human being, and with no immediate way of communicating back home, Ryland is armed with only his capacity for reason to help his fellow humans.
“I’m going to die out here. And I’m going to die alone” (73).
He has been given a collection of four “beetles” transporters which can transport his one-way findings back to earth (the little beetle transport devices have been aptly named John, Paul, George, and Ringo – to whom the novel is dedicated by Andy Weir). However, Project Hail Mary takes a surprising twist. It becomes a first contact novel when a huge ship approaches Ryland aboard the “Hail Mary” and makes a connection with him. At first, I wondered if he might have been hallucinating? Or could this be a second manned ship sent from earth? As it turns out, Ryland becomes the first human to make contact with an alien species. The alien turns out to be an eyeless spider-like creature with three triangular fingers on five claws and brownish black rock skin over his carapace (leading Ryland to name him “Rocky”). As the two establish their connection in space, Ryland learns to understand the strange whale-song noises it uses to speak (with help from his super computer computer). Rocky is from the 40 Eridani system (the third planet which is only about size of earth’s moon) which has a significantly different gravity and atmosphere than on earth (Eridians live an average of 698 earth years and they weigh about 400 pounds). They are hermaphrodites and reproduce by laying eggs. Rocky is a brilliant engineer of sorts, with a photographic memory, and like Ryland, he is alone on his giant ship (his fellow Eridians died due to radiation), his shipmates apparently died of radiation.
Ryland and Rocky quickly strike up a friendship based on mutual trust and cooperation. They both are altruistic, sacrificing themselves at various points to save the other. Their friendship becomes both heartwarming and hilarious. Together, they share information (like a remarkable material called xenonite used by Eridians) and Ryland posits that he and Rocky might be distant genetic relatives (i.e. “the panspermia theory”). After joining their ships through a unique airlock, they visit the nearby planet Adrian (which turns out to be the astrophage’s ancestral homeland where they go to breed.) Here, they make a remarkable discovery – astrophage has a natural predator species, a microscopic organism which they call “taumoeba.” The taumoeba actually consumes astrophage. They narrowly manage to retrieve samples of the taumoeba and Ryland begins running breeding experiments before sending samples back to earth via his “beetles” before saying a tearful goodbye to Rocky and starting to head back to earth.
But in the final act, Ryland realizes that the taumoeba has actually escaped and it starts eating away at his astrophage fuel as well as the nitrogen in xenonite aboard the “Hail Mary.” He barely rescues his ship and instead of continuing onward home, he decides to turn back and save his friend Rocky whose ship is under serious threat (Ryland calls Rocky’s ship the “Blip-A”). In the final chapter, we see Ryland has returned to Rocky’s Eridian homeplanet with him. He is hailed as a hero and is offered the chance to return home to earth (the “Hail Mary” is still in orbit around the planet) but he realizes he is getting older, the higher gravity is affecting his bones and giving him arthritis, and he is unsure about making the long, lonely trip back to earth. At first, he wasn’t sure if earth was still hospitable (the scientists back on earth decided to exacerbate the effects of climate change, even nuking antarctica, in order to maintain the sun’s warmth). However, as the novel concludes, Ryland receives confirmation from the Eridians that the sun’s solar output has returned to full luminescence. The taumoeba transportation worked! Ryland has saved both earth and 40 Eridani. Perhaps he will return to earth one day, but for now he is content to continue working as an educator of young Eridians. The novel ends on a bittersweet note with humanity saved, but our protagonist remains on a foreign planet (at least he is among friends).
Indeed, the theme of friendship and altruism serves as a key plotpoint in Project Hail Mary. Whereas conquering predatory species like astrophage are typically associated with successful species survival, the most fit species to survive, in Project Hail Mary it is actually Ryland and Rocky’s capacity for reason, science, and mutual self-sacrifice that allows for both Eridians and humans to thrive. This is a remarkably optimistic novel despite dealing with a bleak subject matter, as one man completely isolated in the vast vacuum of space is racing against the clock to save the earth. The stakes are incredibly high yet they are addressed in a deft and droll manner. Project Hail Mary is a reminder of how precarious the future of life on earth be can be.
Weir, Andy. Project Hail Mary. Ballantine Books, New York, New York, 2021. Dedicated to “John, Paul, George, and Ringo.”