Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

Cool thing about pendulums: The time it takes for one to swing forward and backward—the period—won’t change, no matter how wide it swings. If it’s got a lot of energy, it’ll swing farther and faster, but the period will still be the same. This is what mechanical clocks take advantage of to keep time. That period ends up being driven by two things, and two things only: the length of the pendulum and gravity.

However desperate things were, someone still had to deliver milk. And if Mrs. McCreedy’s house got bombed in the night, well, you crossed it off the delivery list.

“Believe it or not, light has momentum,” I said. “It exerts a force. If you were out in space and you turned on a flashlight, you’d get a teeny, tiny amount of thrust from it.”

“Astrophage,”

Can I do this? Will I be rendered completely worthless from this point on? Will humanity die because I can’t handle zero g? No.

I clench my teeth. I clench my fists. I clench my butt. I clench every part of me that I know how to clench. It gives me a feeling of control. I’m doing something by aggressively doing nothing.

Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.

Hey, I’m going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can’t do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern.

“We fell in poop and came out smelling like roses,”

Sometimes, the stuff we all hate ends up being the only way to do things.

European languages didn’t even have a word for tornado until Spanish conquistadors saw them in North America. Now they’re happening in Italy, Spain, and Greece.”

When the alternative is death to your entire species, things are very easy. No moral dilemmas, no weighing what’s best for whom. Just a single-minded focus on getting this project working.”

“Are all Russians crazy?” “Yes,” he said with a smile. “It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.” “That’s … dark.” “That’s Russian!”

“Math is not thinking. Math is procedure. Memory is not thinking. Memory is storage. Thinking is thinking. Problem, solution. You and me think same speed. Why, question?”

much—I wasn’t just some stupid human. I was a human with enhanced stupidity.

“For fifty thousand years, right up to the industrial revolution, human civilization was about one thing and one thing only: food. Every culture that existed put most of their time, energy, manpower, and resources into food. Hunting it, gathering it, farming it, ranching it, storing it, distributing it … it was all about food.

properly—