NASA is training for the first human mission to Mars aboard the spacecraft Aries. When a suspected glitch in the navigation system is detected, the agency digs back to the original programmer to understand the fault. Fred Z. Randall, the eccentric and bookish coder who wrote the software, meets several key figures: Paul Wick, the capable flight director; Wild Bill Overbeck, the battle‑hardened mission commander; and Gary Hackman, the computer specialist whose math seems to have sparked the trouble. Fred’s early look at the code reveals that the problem isn�t purely a glitch at all but an error Gary made in the mathematics, a discovery that foreshadows the tense choices ahead. Meanwhile, Gary is suddenly felled by a model of the Pilgrim 1 Mars lander, suffering a skull fracture, and NASA faces a difficult decision: delay the mission or replace him.
As the dust settles, NASA decides to bring Fred in as a potential astronaut, putting him through a demanding set of tests and simulations. He demonstrates an astonishing knack for problem‑solving, shattering records that even Overbeck had set and proving his worth under pressure. Yet even as his technical prowess shines, Fred’s nerves fray at the prospect of actually boarding the mission. Bud Nesbitt—a steady, blunt ally—offers a piece of hard-won wisdom from a lifetime’s worth of spaceflight lore, including a trio of commemorative coins President Johnson once gave to Armstrong and Lovell. The scene is at once humorous and motivational, and Fred privately wrestles with the weight of history and the possibility of failure.
With the crew assembled—Commander Overbeck, geologist Julie Ford, and the chimpanzee Ulysses—fate drives them toward Mars. As they prepare to depart, the team communicates with the President and endures a moment of public embarrassment when they hum along to a sly chorus: “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The moment underscores the strange mix of heroism and humanity that threads through their mission. Resource constraints force the crew into hypersleep for eight months during the long voyage, a plan that aims to conserve fuel and supplies but requires Fred to sleep in a much smaller chamber after Ulysses, the trained chimp, takes his sleep pod for himself. Fred manages only a brief 13‑minute slumber before he must stay awake to monitor the long, perilous journey.
Arriving at Mars, Fred, Overbeck, Julie, and Ulysses press to explore; the weather data reveals dangerous sandstorms that threaten the landing site and the crew. They push through to set Pilgrim 1 down on the Martian surface, and the moment of first contact is both historic and chaotic: Fred slips from the ladder and lands before Overbeck, audaciously cementing the moment with the exclamation that it Wasn’t Me. In the days that follow, the storm front accelerates ahead of schedule, testing their resolve and their craft’s resilience. When the ship’s power falters after rocks kicked up by the wind damage the lander, Fred has to improvise a rapid fix, rewiring the circuits and rebooting the system in a fevered, high‑stakes sprint. With mere seconds to spare, he finds a way to complete the circuit, inserting a commemorative coin into a slot to restore power and buy the crew their escape back to Aries.
Once safely aboard, Fred and Julie share a moment of levity and wonder: a dance in zero gravity set to Johann Strauss’s The Blue Danube, with Fred in a gleaming silver tuxedo and Julie in a dress sewn from repurposed space blankets. The victory is tempered by continued strain back on the ship, as Ulysses again seizes Fred’s hypersleep chamber and the voyage home becomes a race against time and space. The Aries finally begins its eight‑month return to Earth, leaving Fred to shout his anguish as the stowaway chimp occupies his sleeping berth.
In a light‑hearted postscript, a Martian flag‑pole is shown missing its flag, and the crew’s flag‑related mischief is revealed: Fred’s American flag boxers, used earlier as a makeshift flag, have apparently been stolen and worn by a resourceful Martian. The crew’s odyssey—fraught with technical peril, stubborn pride, and a stubborn streak of luck—leaves a lasting impression of ingenuity, courage, and the stubborn belief that humanity can make a home among the stars.
