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The book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, author of the book The Martian, is one of the best science fiction stories I’ve read and is definitely worth reading. My understanding is that the book goes into more detail than the movie which is a more of a “Hollywood“ type of movie. The movie is scheduled for theater release March 20, 2026.
Here’s a compact, movie-friendly summary you can use, with full spoilers. (This summary constructed by Perplexity)
Ryland Grace, a former microbiologist turned middle‑school science teacher, wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he’s there. As he explores, he discovers two dead crewmates and realizes he’s on an interstellar mission called Hail Mary, sent from a dying Earth to another star system as a last‑chance attempt to stop a cosmic disaster.[2][5][6]
Flashbacks slowly return: in the near future, a microbe called Astrophage is draining energy from the Sun and will trigger a global ice age within decades. Grace once wrote about exotic life that could live without liquid water, which makes him useful when scientists discover Astrophage feeding along a mysterious “Petrova line” between the Sun and Venus. A hard‑nosed international leader, Eva Stratt, is given sweeping authority to solve the crisis and eventually forces Grace—against his will—to join a one‑way mission to the only nearby star, Tau Ceti, that isn’t dimming.[5][6][2]
In the present, Grace realizes his ship has arrived at Tau Ceti, and he soon encounters an alien vessel. Its pilot is a spider‑like engineer he nicknames Rocky, from the planet Erid, whose star is also being drained by Astrophage. Despite totally different biology (Rocky lives in high‑pressure ammonia atmosphere and “sees” with sound), they painstakingly learn to communicate and become close partners, trading technology and knowledge to save both worlds.[4][6][2][5]
Together, they discover that a different microorganism, Taumoeba, naturally eats Astrophage near a planet in the Tau Ceti system. After a dangerous series of experiments and near‑fatal accidents that almost kill Rocky, they manage to engineer a version of Taumoeba that can be used as a biological weapon to clear Astrophage from their stars. Grace launches robotic “Beetle” probes carrying the cure back toward Earth, while Rocky prepares to do the same for Erid.[6][2][4][5]
On the way home, a leak threatens Rocky’s ship, and Grace realizes Rocky will die unless someone helps him in person. Knowing it means giving up his own chance to return to Earth, Grace turns the Hail Mary around, rescues Rocky, and travels with him to Erid instead. Years later, Grace lives as a frail but respected teacher and scientist among Rocky’s people, and Rocky brings news that Earth’s Sun has brightened again—his sacrifice worked, and both civilizations survived.[2][4][5][6]
For someone who hasn’t read the book, the “movie version” to expect is: one man wakes up alone in deep space on a suicide mission to stop a star‑eating microbe, befriends an alien engineer facing the same threat, and ultimately chooses to save his friend’s world instead of going home, trusting that his work has already saved Earth.[4][5][6][2]
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