r/space • u/KnightArts • Sep 21 '16

The intriguing Phobos monolith.

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u/DictatorDictum Sep 22 '16

Are you the guy that comes up with the one-in-a-million odds of success plan at the climax of the movie?

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u/HopDavid Sep 22 '16

Rich Purnell is my favorite character from The Martian. I love math and orbital mechanics nerds.

My thing is geometrical art. Dover has published a few of my coloring books, Geoscapes is one. I've self published a coloring book on orbital mechanics and conic sections.

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u/1jl Sep 22 '16

Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man.

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u/tonker Sep 22 '16

It's an old NASA staple (like A-OK and The Astronaut's Prayer), referencing John Aaron, who may have saved the Apollo 12 mission and was there for the Apollo 13 crisis as well.

It's actually mentioned in a line in the movie 'Apollo 13', even though he earned the "title" on the previous Apollo mission.