Project Hail Mary

A science fiction book by Andy Weir in which a amnesiac high school science teacher wakes up during a mysterious mission to save the world.

Stats

• Author: Andy Weir
• Publication date: 2021-05-04

Details

People

Annie Shapiro

(c16) DNA expert. Meets Stratt, Grace, and the other crew members.

Ilyukhina

(c1) Dead crewmate of the Hail Mary. Ryland cannot recall their name. (c4; a.k.a. “ИЛЮХИНА”) Ryland remembers her name while ejecting her corpse out an airlock. (c16) Meets Stratt, Grace, and the other crew members.

Lokken, Dr.

(c8) A scientist who lobbies Dr. Stratt to give the Hail Mary artificial gravity by designing it to transform into a centrifuge. Stratt assigns Lokken the responsibility to lead the centrifuge engineering design and manufacture.

Martin DuBois

(c16) Member of the prime crew. Meets Stratt, Grace, and the other crew members.

Olesya Ilyukhina

See Ilyukhina

Robert Redell

(c13) A solar farm entrepreneur incarcerated in Auckland Prison for criminal negligence and embezzlement. Proposed the Blackpanel idea to Stratt.

Ryland Grace

Biologist turned school teacher.

Rocky

Lone pilot.

Steve Hatch

(c18) A university professor of University of British Columbia who is designing, manufacturing, and launching the beetles for sending results from Tau Ceti to Earth.

Stratt, Dr.

The head of the Hail Mary Project and effective dictator appointed by the UN to save Earth.

Yáo

(c1) Dead crewmate of the Hail Mary. Ryland cannot recall their name. (c4; a.k.a. 「姚」, “Yáo Li-Jie”) Ryland remembers their full name while ejecting their corpse out an airlock. (c16) Meets Stratt, Grace and the other crew members.

Places

Adrian

(c16) The planet in the Tau Ceti system that is a breeding ground for astrophage. Rocky names it after their partner but Grace gives it the name “Adrian” so it is pronounceable by humans.

40 Eridani

(c8) Origin of the Blip-A.

Tau Ceti

(c1) Grace unknowingly arrives at this star system. (c5) Grace remembers that Tau Ceti is a star 11.9 light-years from Earth seems uninfected by astrophage despite being near the center of the infection among nearby stars, according to a chinese scientist named Xi.

Things

astrophage

(c3) A space-faring solar radiation blocking microorganism that threatens the habitability of Earth.

beetles

(c4) Four trapezoidal space vehicles on the Hail Mary designed to send results back to Earth. (c18) Designed by Steve Natch of University of British Columbia for the Hail Mary crew to carry 4 terabytes of data and physical samples back to Earth.

Blackpanel

(c13) A solar power device proposed by Robert Redell to breed and charge astrophage at scale.

Blip-A

(c7) The literal designation given by the Hail Maryʼs automatic systems to an unidentified object that Ryland Grace deduces is an alien spacecraft.

taumeoba

(c21) A microbe from Tau Ceti that predates on astrophage.

Narrative

Project Hail Mary chapter summaries

Chapter	Description	Characters
c1	Dr. Ryland Grace is woken up disoriented by a robot.	Ryland
c2
c3
c4	Ryland comes to terms with the fact that he is in a solar system different from his own on a one-way trip. Ryland deduces the Hail Mary uses astrophage for fuel. Ryland recalls discovering the astrophage homeostasis temperature of 96.415°C. Ryland recalls killing an astrophage with a nanoneedle and discovering it is a microbe consisting mostly of water. Ryland recalls his students asking about his work on astrophages and informing them of the apocalyptic extinctions and famines to come in three decades. Ryland returns to Stratt's lab and insists on continuing work on the astrophages. Stratt gives him 3 to research. In the present, Ryland diafovers the four beetles designed to return data and physical samples to Earth: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.	Ryland, Stratt, school kids
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10		Ryland, Rocky
c11	Grace and Rocky being eatablishing common units of measure. Grace takes a two hour nap after being awake for more than 48 hours. Grace deduces Rocky is blind. In the past, Stratt attends court to officially snub patent trolls in person. Grace prepares computers to decipher Rocky's speech with Fourier transform software but finds Rocky absent. Grace leaves a note that he will take an 8-hour nap.	Grace, Rocky, Stratt
c12	Grace wakes up late. Grace and Rocky determine a method for measuring mass. Rocky asks Grace to watch him sleep. Grace learns Rocky is the sole survivor of the Blip-A.
c13	Lokken proposes to Grace using astrophage as a radiation shield for the Hail Mary.
c14	Grace tells Stratt half of humanity will die in 19 years due to falling solar radiation. Stratt demands strategies to geoëngineer global warming to extend 19 years to 27. Since the Hail Mary will take 13 years to travel to Tau Ceti and another 13 to return results. Grace explains to Rocky how Rocky's crewmates likely died of radiation sickness. Grace explains that Rocky survived because their job as engineer kept them close to astrophage containers; astrophage absorbs all radiation. Grace remembers a trip to Antarctica to nuke glaciers with fusion bombs. In the present, Grace and Rocky discuss how they see through light and sound respectively. Rocky constructs a mobile spacesuit for themselves to explore the interior of the Hail Mary.
c15	Grace gives Rocky a tour of the Hail Mary. Rocky and Grace decide to disconnect the Blip-A so they can create artificial gravity to use Grace's extensive scientific equipment which Rocky lacks. Grace and Stratt talk to Dr. Lamai whose automatic coma patient caretaker machine they plan to use for the Hail Mary crew. Stratt demands that all Hail Mary team members submit to genetic tests for the coma-resistent genes, including herself and Grace. Rocky asks for help in collecting astrophage samples on Tau Ceti. Grace shows Rocky. Rocky explains they have been in Tau Ceti for 46 earth years. Grace is surprised to learn Eridians live on average 689 earth years and Rocky is 291 years old.
c16	Rocky says his home planet Erid has 72 earth years until astrophage dimming of 40 Eridani causes problems. Grace explains Earth has only 14 years until the majority of humans die due to Earth's comparably thinner atmosphere. Grace reveals his trip to Tau Ceti was one-way. Rocky offers the 2 million kilograms of astrophage Grace needs to return to Earth due to having extra. In the past, Grace and Stratt meet the prime crew (Yáo, Ilyukhina, and Martin DuBois) and backup crew (Captain Yang, Annie Shapiro, a Russian woman). Stratt regrets that the US and Russia forced her to include women in the crew due to the hazard of romantic drama on the mission.
c17
c18	In the past, Grace and the Hail Mary crew watch a launch of cargo and supplies to construct the Hail Mary. In the present, Grace fails to find an astrophage predator in the sample they collected. Grace and Rocky create a plan to drop a xenonite chain into the atmosphere of Adrian in order to retrieve more biological samples. Grace asks Rocky why the Blip-A has excess astrophage fuel; Rocky explains the Eridiansʼs original plan. Grace deduces the Eridians lack a theory of relativity and the associated time dilation. In the past, Steve Hatch meets with Grace to demonstrate the beetle prototype named Pete. Steve receives a milligram of astrophage.	Grace, Rocky, Steve Hatch
c19	Grace and Rocky lower the Hail Mary down into the upper atmosphere of Adrian with a sample collector hanging at the end of their xenonite chain. They collect a sample. A tremor indicates damage of some sort. Grace pilots the ship into a safely high orbit to buy time to effect repairs. At the end of the burn, Grace and Rocky notice the ship is still accelerating. Grace deduces that infrared radiation from the astrophage drives creates a hole in the outer hull, accidentally allowing astrophage free to see Adrian, thus unintentionally creating a de facto uncontrolled astrophage drive that pushes the ship off-course. Grace ejects the damaged ship section. Astrophage continue to leak from another section, immobilizing Grace with the acceleration force. Rocky breaks out of his ammonia-rich xenonite bubble and performs the actions Grace could not to save the Hail Mary, asking Grace to save his world on his place.
c20	Grace awakens to find the Hail Mary stable and Rocky's unmoving body. Grace hauls Rocky to an airlock connected to Rocky's atmosphere. Grace forces open a pathway for Rocky's hot ammonia atmosphere to flood the airlock, causing himself grave chemical burns. Grace has the auto doctor care for him. Grace creates a sealed container for the captured sample but forgets to plan a way to access it again. Grace tricks the auto doctor into giving him more painkillers than its programmed limits. Grace rigs a method to blow dark material from Rocky's radiator to help them recover if they are alive.
c21	In the past, Grace reviews the Hail Mary’s preferences for assisted suicide at the end of the mission. DuBois wants death by nitrogen asphyxiation. Ilyukhina wants a heroine overdose. Yáo wants a pistol which he can use to kill the other crew members if their preferred suicide method fails as well as himself at the end. In the present, Grace hears Rocky awaken. Rocky says Grace nearly killed him by blowing the black powder from his radiator; the black substance was biological material essential for the healing process. Grace and Rocky discuss evolutionary factors affecting intelligence. Grace and Rocky decide to rest before changing the ship's orbit. In the past, 9 days before final launch, Grace is working in an office near research and space launch center of Baikonur. An explosion occurs. Stratt and Grace determine DuBois and Shapiro, both the principle and backup science members, were killed in a test of an astrophage generator. Stratt orders Grace to immediately begin searching for a science specialist replacement.	Grace, Rocky, Stratt, DuBois, Ilyukhina, Yáo
c22	Grace and Rocky rig, the Hail Mary to use the beatles's astrophage drives to adjust the orbit and rotation of the Hail Mary. Grace blacks out while Rocky performs the maneuver. Grace wakes up.
c23	Grace meets with Stratt, Dimitri, Yáo, Ilyukhina, and Steve Hatch. The explosion that killed DuBois and Shapiro was caused by a milligram of astrophage being issued to DuBois for an engine failure test instead of a nanogram. Stratt says Grace is to be the replacement science crew member. Grace refuses, saying he does not wish to die. Grace gives him a few hours to decide or not.
c24	Grace remembers he refused to be a crew member but Stratt forced him to go with drugs. Grace and Rocky breed taumeba to resist nitrogen. Grace and Rocky use the beetles to propel themselves back to the Blip-A.
c25	Grace breeds the nitrogen-resistant Taumeba-35. Grace disinfects Hail Mary fuel tanks. Grace jettisons an uncleanable tank. Rocky prepares a pumping system to transfer astrophage from the Blip-A. Grace breeds Taumeba-82.5. Grace and Rocky celebrate. Grace and Rocky part ways.
c26	In the past, Stratt monologues at imprisoned Grace about how world conflicts are, at the end of the day, about food shortages. In the present, Grace discovers a taumeba infection.	Stratt, Grace
c27	Sterilizes the hail Mary with nitrogen.
c28	Grace discovers he unintentionally bred Taumeba-82.5 to penetrate xenonite.
c29	Grace tracks down the Blip-A by using his maneuvering astrophage drives to illuminate light-minutes of space with infrared light detectable by his Petrovascope. Grace finds Rocky injured but working fruitlessly to sterilize the Blip-A of taumeba. Grace explains to Rocky how the Taumeba evolved to not only withstand oxygen but to seek shelter within the walls of their xenonite containers. Grace tells Rocky he lacks food for a return trip to Earth after visiting Erid. Rocky accepts Grace's offer to receive two million kilograms of astrophage fuel. Rocky proposes Grace eat taumeba, that now comprises 22 million tons of organic material within the Blip-A’s fuel tanks.	Grace, Rocky
c30

History

• 2020-03-20: Film adaptation announced.
• 2021-05-04: Novel published.

See also

• Wikipedia:Project Hail Mary
• Project Hail Mary (film)