The Martian: Chapters 14–19

by Andy Weir
Botanist and mechanical engineer Mark Watney was chosen for NASA's Ares Program to explore Mars, but when a sandstorm prevents him from reaching the departing spaceship, his new solo mission is figuring out how to use the limited resources to survive on a lifeless planet.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–7, Chapters 8–13, Chapters 14–19, Chapters 20–26
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. asset
    a valuable item that someone owns
    Still, it's an asset, and maybe I can use it to stop the airlock leak.
  2. chisel
    carve with an edge tool
    Once I got a screwdriver, I chiseled myself free (feeling really stupid the whole time).
  3. scrounge
    collect or look around for
    I'll have to scrounge around in the now-collapsed canvas to get the spare material for patching.
  4. sublimate
    change directly from a solid into a vapor without melting
    Lewis's is full of water. Actually, by now it's full of slowly sublimating ice.
  5. trundle
    move slowly or heavily
    Running in 0.4 g while wearing a bulky EVA suit isn't easy. At best, I can trundle 2 meters per second.
  6. strenuous
    characterized by or performed with much energy or force
    NASA discovered that turning your whole EVA-suited body to look at something was a strenuous waste of time. So they mounted a small camera on the right arm.
  7. naive
    lacking information or instruction
    "Yay!" I naively thought. "Problem solved."
  8. faculty
    an inherent cognitive or perceptual power of the mind
    "Within four days of running out of food, he'll barely be able to stand up, let alone control a rover. Plus, his mental faculties will rapidly decline. He'd have a hard time even staying awake."
  9. recourse
    something or someone turned to for assistance or security
    "If this launch fails, is there any recourse for Watney?"
  10. entrenched
    established firmly and securely
    Rich Purnell, entrenched in his orbital calculations, had lost track of time.
  11. jettison
    throw away, of something encumbering
    The first stage depleted its fuel, and the booster coasted for a fraction of a second as it jettisoned stage clamps via explosive bolts.
  12. intermittent
    stopping and starting at irregular intervals
    "Intermittent signal loss," called another voice.
  13. despondent
    without or almost without hope
    It was the signal to start post-failure procedures.
    From the VIP observation room, Teddy watched the despondent Mission Control Center.
  14. infer
    conclude by reasoning
    Yet the State Council insisted all launches be shrouded in secrecy. Even launches with nothing to hide. This way, other nations could not infer from lack of openness which launches contained classified payloads.
  15. reimburse
    compensate, as for a loss
    "Any agreement would hinge on the Americans reimbursing us for the booster," Zhu Tao said, "and the State Council would likely want political favors from the US government."
  16. fait accompli
    an irreversible accomplishment
    If this becomes a negotiation by diplomats, it will never be resolved. We need to keep this among scientists. Space agency to space agency. I'll get a translator and call NASA's administrator. We'll work out an agreement, then present it to our governments as a fait accompli.
  17. jaded
    bored or apathetic after experiencing too much of something
    I guess after a lifetime of commanding sailors, she's got an unfairly jaded view.
  18. entail
    impose, involve, or imply as a necessary result
    "Run us through it, Venkat. What would it entail?"
  19. provision
    a store or supply of something
    Around that time, they'd pick up a resupply probe with provisions for the extended trip.
  20. rendezvous
    a meeting planned at a certain time and place
    "We'd shoot for a near-Earth rendezvous. It's a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that's for sure."
  21. dire
    fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless
    Now that I'm in a “dire situation,” I don’t have to follow social rules anymore.
  22. connotation
    an idea that is implied or suggested
    "Project Elrond" had taken on a dark connotation throughout the Space Center, veiled in secrecy.
  23. rampant
    occurring or increasing in an unrestrained way
    Speculation ran rampant. Some thought it was a completely new program in the works. Others worried it might be a move to cancel Ares 4 and 5.
  24. scant
    less than the correct or legal or full amount
    The Hermes crew enjoyed their scant personal time in an area called "the Rec."
  25. mutiny
    open rebellion against constituted authority
    This is something NASA expressly rejected. We're talking about mutiny.
  26. court-martial
    subject to trial by a military tribunal
    You and I are military. There's a good chance we'd be court-martialed when we got home.
  27. vector
    a quantity that has magnitude and direction
    "CAPCOM, advise Hermes they're drifting. Telemetry, get a correction vector ready—"
  28. jaunt
    a journey taken for pleasure
    My trip to Pathfinder was a quick jaunt compared to the epic journey that's coming up.
  29. succession
    a following of one thing after another in time
    I had to make my own nine-amp breaker. I strung three three-amp breakers in parallel. There's no way for nine amps to get through that without tripping all three in rapid succession.
  30. abandon
    the trait of lacking restraint or control
    Worked like a charm! The drill whirled away with happy abandon.
  31. stave off
    prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
    With hundreds of millions of bacteria, it only takes one survivor to stave off extinction.
  32. tenacious
    stubbornly unyielding
    Life is amazingly tenacious. They don't want to die any more than I do.
  33. herald
    foreshadow or presage
    The worst moments in life are heralded by small observations.
  34. chiropractor
    a therapist who manipulates the body to ease pain
    I spent the last week recovering from back problems. The pain wasn't bad, but there aren't any chiropractors on Mars, so I wasn't taking chances.
  35. accommodate
    have room for; hold without crowding
    If the brackets stick out far enough to accommodate two panels, I could store eight additional panels that way.
  36. scavenge
    collect discarded or refused material
    I headed out to the MAV's landing strut array to scavenge metal for the shelves.
  37. counterintuitive
    contrary to what common sense would suggest
    Making them bigger makes them take less mass per kilowatt hour of storage. Yeah, it's counterintuitive.
  38. effigy
    a representation of a person
    So long as the probe gets to Hermes, they can burn me in effigy for all I care.
  39. contrail
    an artificial cloud created by an aircraft
    The main screen showed Taiyang Shen's contrail wafting in the chilly Gobi sky. The ship, no longer visible to the naked eye, pressed onward toward orbit.
  40. dwindle
    become smaller or lose substance
    Its deafening roar dwindled to a distant rumbling thunder.
Created on Mon Feb 22 20:38:04 EST 2016 (updated Sun Jul 23 10:52:07 EDT 2023)

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